


Jackrabbit

by Neyasochi



Category: Overwatch (Video Game)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Coffee Shops & Cafés, Attractive loiterer Hanzo, Baker Jesse, Barista Jack, Jesse McCree and his parental figures, M/M, Minor Fareeha/Angela/Genji/Zenyatta, Multi, Not-yakuza Hanzo, Pastry chef Gabe, but with omnics and a talking gorilla bc it's still 2076 or whatever
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-12-22
Updated: 2016-12-22
Packaged: 2018-09-10 23:53:35
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 31,785
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8944396
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Neyasochi/pseuds/Neyasochi
Summary: Jesse McCree prides himself on knowing when to get the heck out of dodge-- got a real knack for it, honed by a lifetime of experience. It’s how he managed to skip out on his job about a week before Jack and Gabe self-destructed, the whole shop burned down, and their investors washed their hands of the coffee business. Drifting from supermarket to bakery to caterer over the last five years has gotten pretty stale, though, so when Winston decides to revive the old place, McCree jumps at the offer to resume his post.Things are definitely looking up, awkwardness with his old bosses aside–-  at least until the guy with the dragon tattoo starts coming around.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> I'm sorry for anything that is laughably off/unrealistic. I barely even drink coffee & I know nothing about anything.

The screen of his phone blinks softly as he receives the first in a string of messages, each signaled with a muted chime of the theme from Six-Gun Killer.

_McCree? Hi, it’s Winston! I know you’ve been laying low, and I apologize for tracking you down like this, but I have an offer that I just want you to hear out. You’re under no pressure to accept._

There are footsteps behind him, and then the heavy huff of breath as Burson drops whatever he was carrying onto the slightly tacky kitchen floor. “Gonna help me carry in these bags or what, McCree? You better not be dicking around on your phone again--”

“Why, I never,” Jesse says as he turns around, pressing his prosthetic hand to his chest in mock offense while his other hand sneakily slips his phone under his apron and into his pocket. “As if I could ever deny myself the thrill of hauling around forty-pound bags of pre-made biscuit mix.”

“Don’t be a shit, McCree,” is all Burson replies at first, but a steady stream of complaints begins to flow somewhere around their fourth trip between the delivery truck and the industrial-sized kitchen pantry.

Jesse ignores the other man’s belly-aching in favor of mulling over the messages-- from _Winston_ of all people, apparently calling the shots now-- offering him a job with better pay, better benefits, and the chance to exercise a little creative license.

The offer also comes with the promise that it ‘won’t end up like last time’, for what that’s worth.

He lets Burson take the next trip without him, making some excuse about a split bag and needing to clean up. Once alone in the pantry, Jesse stuffs his hairnet into the pocket of his apron and fishes out his phone again. He leans against a shelf of lard, surrounded by ugly bags of bland biscuit mix, and runs his fingers across the smudge-coated screen to begin his reply.

He stares at the thread of messages-- and his response to Winston’s inquiry, just three words long-- until he hears Burson’s heavy steps and grumbling return. He’s gnawed his pinky nail to the bed by the time he hits send and gives his surly supervisor the news.

And just like that, he’s whistling the open of Six-Gun Killer to himself as he walks out into the noonday sun, having given his two weeks’ notice and gotten fired on the spot instead.

* * *

 

When he’d last seen the old shop, it was during a backward glance as he’d high-tailed it away after his (unannounced) last shift. On a Wednesday. Five years ago. Gabriel and Jack had still been arguing in the back office when he left, after going on strong for at least an hour.

The old OverCoffee had been reduced to a burned out husk less than two weeks later-- but that was secondhand knowledge, stuff Jesse had only learned with a little careful stalking on all of the social media platforms Genji used to broadcast every detail of his daily life. He’d had no desire to slink back to see the damage himself, especially knowing he might be spotted by a familiar face; instead, he had skimmed news articles and studied pictures, had listened with a tight jaw whenever whispers about _the_ Gabriel Reyes started up in whatever kitchen he currently found employment in.

When the investigation soon closed and the owners decided to neither rebuild nor reopen OverCoffee, Jesse McCree had considered that chapter of his life shelved alongside all its predecessors.

But now he’s here. Back for the first time in half a decade. It feels strange to finally wander up the street that he’d long ago made a habit of avoiding, and stranger still to turn the corner and see OverCoffee’s signage missing, its familiar storefront replaced with that of an entirely new and expanded shop.

He slips in through the backdoor with the code Winston gave him, and having shown up a bit early, he decides to give the new remodel a thorough exploration. He needs to, honestly, because not one lick of the new place matches the layout or style of the old one, despite being built on its ashes.

Opening is still a few days away, and there are signs here and there of the shop being a work in progress-- missing tables and chairs, piles of refuse sitting in giant trash bags, some stretches of bare wall and fixtures missing lightbulbs-- but it’s more polished than it is unfinished. Hell, it already looks prettier and cleaner than half the places he’s worked in the last five years. Almost unrecognizable, too. Completely reworked from the ground up.

The back wall of the shop is now exposed, whitewashed brick. A long planter runs along its baseboard, short tendrils of ivy just beginning to crawl upwards. It’s a sight, to be sure, as are the rest of the vibrantly colored plants that dot the interior.

Jesse can’t resist gently squeezing the fat leaves of potted aloe and succulents that sit near the entry on wall-mounted shelves. They are all pale greens, dusty purples, and fiery oranges, still faintly damp from a spritzing of water. Closer to the register is another burst of floral color, and Jesse knows this plant better.

 _Brewer’s lupine_. He thumbs at the stalky sprigs of purple-blue flowers and thinks of hikes up Smith Peak, trying not to tromp on the flora that Jack pointed out to him and Gabe.

Dark, espresso-colored flooring stretches from wall to wall. It’s all synthetic wood, of course, but it’s the good stuff-- near indistinguishable from the real thing and practically impossible to scratch or dull. The pale metal accents of the furniture and appliances cut a contrast with the floors, while a flood of natural light keeps the room from feeling too dark. Two rows of skylights illuminate the service counter and back wall, while broad windows along the storefront keep the seating area well lit.

And the _countertop_. Good Lord, it has Jesse steepling his hands against his lips in awe. He lets out a low whistle as he runs a hand over the enormous slab of wood-- honest-to-God _real_ wood, grown straight from the ground, dark and richly grained. Its cracks and natural dips are filled with crystal-clear glass, creating a perfectly smooth surface that doesn’t hamper the natural beauty of the wood in the slightest-- or hold greasy fingerprints, apparently.

The countertop alone is probably worth more than he’s made in the last year, what with all the deforestation making big, old trees as rare as hen’s teeth. If he didn’t know that Jack’s love of nature and national parks ran as deep as the gorges and canyons he liked to explore, he’d worry it might be poached from some protected forest. That’s something Deadlock would’ve gotten its hands dirty in, once upon a time.

He touches one of the support pillars-- bare, white, vaguely reminiscent of a Grecian column-- and his fingers stick against still-tacky fresh paint. It has _branches_ further up, as do the other supports. They look like welded iron, painted white; they sprawl and crook, each one hung with a pendant light.

There’s no shortage of nostalgia in seeing every touch here that surely came by Jack’s hand, his penchant for all things natural and woodsy. No shortage of anxiety, either, or sweaty palms, as he thinks of seeing the man again for the first time after leaving without notice.

He drifts around the room while he waits for Winston to return from the back office, noting the little touches that have carried over from the old shop, all of them bittersweet: Jack’s old-fashioned chalkboard drawings and menus behind the counter, the framed botanical art along the walls, the displays incorporating dried, woven wheat and faded wildflowers. All things that reminded Jack of Indiana and his family’s farm outside of Bloomington.

Jesse even spies an old Bastion espresso unit sitting behind the counter—top of the line a decade ago, now probably a bargain that Winston restored to good working order. The model is familiar to him, at least, which will make getting back into the swing of barista-ing a bit easier.

The place isn’t trendy, but it’s got a charm to it, alright. Winston’s added his own touches here and there, too, like a vintage NASA poster by the restrooms and a stack of old-fashioned tabletop games and cheap tablets piled high next to the counter for customers to play while they eat and drink. Then there’s the picture of the whole gang back in better times, right after Winston got a part-time job and went from being an enthusiastic regular to an enthusiastic coworker.

Jesse slips behind the counter for a closer look and finds everything spick and span, neat and labeled to the point of excess, the display case already meticulously mapped out and charted with sticky notes.  That’s Gabriel through and through, as is the handwritten sign taped to the kitchen doors that reads ‘NO ENTRY’.

Jesse pushes through them anyway-- cautiously, despite knowing he is mostly alone. He’s still half-expecting Gabriel to leap on him as soon as he enters, chew him out for being late, fuss over his shaggy hair, snap at him to get his station ready.

There’s only silence, though, and the faint hum of the gleaming new appliances. There’s new paint-- a terra cotta orange that Gabriel always liked-- and new lighting fixtures. The island counter in the middle of their workspace has nicer stools, kind of modern, with actual cushion instead of just flat metal.

If the front of the shop was overwhelming in its heavy sense of _Jack Morrison_ from floor to ceiling, then the kitchen is doubly so when it comes to Gabriel Reyes. After all, this was where Jesse got his start-- his clean start, the _good_ one, the one that stuck. He worked here from seventeen to thirty-two, and even when the work was rough, the job was good.

It was Gabriel who first put him to work folding dough and baking cookies (and letting him wolf down as many as he wanted, until Jack came by to have a chat with both of them about what narrow profit margins mean). Was Gabriel who dragged him off of the couch at five in the morning and scooted his ass down to the shop to get to work, so they’d have muffins and danishes and biscuits ready by seven. Kept him so busy he didn’t have time to think of going back to his old life-- not that he’d ever _wanted_ to.

He recognizes the saints cards carefully pinned to the wall beside the door-- Elizabeth of Hungary and Honoratus of Amiens, patrons for bakers like him and Gabriel. He’s surprised to see Saint Drogo and his cup of coffee still remain in the spot next to the other two, but guesses that slighting a saint just to snub Jack was a line Gabriel wasn’t willing to cross.

He opens the ovens and peeks in the refrigerator, careful not to put anything out of order. He spies Gabriel’s clipboard hanging off the wall with an inventory sheet attached, the paper covered in the man’s tiny, messy scrawl.

It’s boring, insignificant stuff. Pounds of flour, stores of spices, a catalogue of utensils. He shouldn’t feel guilty looking at a stupid sheet of paper, or for standing here in Gabriel’s kitchen. He shouldn’t feel the sudden pang of missing him, either, or an ache in his ribs so potent he could just sit here and bawl into a sack of sugar.

When Winston finally shows up, Jesse’s damn grateful.

“Winston, fella!” he crows, throwing up his arms as he hails him from across the room.

The gorilla’s wearing a smart business suit that fits an ape of his proportions surprisingly well. He looks exhausted, too, and blinks blearily behind his glasses even as he smiles and accepts Jesse’s full-bodied hug.

“Good to see you again, McCree,” Winston says as he gives the man a light squeeze that sends him rasping for air.

“You too, buddy. Been a while, ain’t it? That’s my fault, though,” he adds sheepishly, his right hand rubbing at the back of his damp neck.

Winston doesn’t meet his gaze, instead adjusting his glasses as he hems and haws around a polite answer.

 _Poor fella_ , Jesse thinks. Has always thought, despite the gorilla’s unflagging insistence on being _fine, fine, fine_. Winston’s a real class act-- real sweet, real thoughtful, real _lonely_. And who wouldn’t be, in his place? He’s got an origin story like Superman or someone, with no one else like him on the whole damn planet-- only unlike Superman, everyone and their brother knows about _Winston the Space Ape_. Tough to pull off a secret identity as a gorilla.

“It’s okay, McCree,” Winston says at last. “I don’t blame you for making the decision that was best for you. I know about needing to get out of a bad situation and not look back,” he adds, a faint, awkward chuckle following.

“Yeah, true,” Jesse agrees, his lips pressing tight together for a moment. “Still, I’m real sorry. I shoulda kept in touch, I just… I don’t, uh, do so good with that stuff. As you know. So, you keep tabs on everyone else, too?”

The gorilla grunts as he settles down on the floor beside a kitchen stool, which he offers to Jesse with a pat on its cushioned seat. “Well, Lena went back to London after she graduated, but she’s on a flight headed back here now. She was planning on quitting her job anyway, she said. Too _boring_ , she said. She missed L.A., and us.”

Jesse can’t help but grin at how hard Winston tries-- and fails-- to curtail his excitement over Lena’s return. They always did get along like peas in a pod, right from that fateful day when the reluctant celebrity wandered into their old shop to evade paparazzi and public stares. “What about Mei?”

“Mei… Mei’s around,” Winston says, slow and uncertain as they shift gears, once again unwilling to stare Jesse in the eye. “She’s, uh… she’s actually got her own business now. A bakery.”

“Really?” Jesse nearly hoots, a hand cupping the top of his hat as he rocks back on the stool in a show of his surprise. “No foolin’? Her own place,” he muses, mildly surprised she didn’t open an ice cream or gelato shop.

“Well, she and her girlfriend own it together, I believe. It’s only a few blocks away.”

“So Mei’s runnin’ the competition now. That’s a shame,” Jesse sighs. He’d miss having her for company during inventory and morning shifts. No one else at OverCoffee liked the same movies, and no one else was ever willing to do matching Halloween costumes with him. “But good on her! Bagged a gal _and_ a business. That’s the way to do it.”

“They make amazing strudel,” Winston leans in and whispers, “but, uh, don’t tell Gabriel I said that.”

“Oh, ho,” Jesse snorts out, the absurdity of it catching him off-guard. He can’t even form a coherent sentence through the chuckle that bubbles out of him, uncontrollable; he takes his hat in hand and pokes at Winston with the wide brim of it. “Buddy,” he says through a wheeze, persisting despite Winston’s half-hearted attempts to swat his arm away, “you don’t gotta tell _me_ that.”

The corners of Winston’s mouth pull back in a good-natured grin that exposes large, pointed canines. “I know. It’s partly why I pinned a lot of hopes on your coming back,” he admits as he shuffles to the walk-in and returns with a banana in hand. “Gabriel is irrefutably remarkable at what he does. His name alone guarantees business. But… he can be challenging to work with.”

“Big Guy,” Jesse says with a spread of his arms, “you’re preachin’ to the choir here.”

“You’re comfortable working alongside him again, though, right? And Jack? I know there’s some… history there.”

“Kind of an understatement,” Jesse mutters as he lifts his hat and runs his hand over his messy hair, temporarily slicking it back. “But yeah, I’m comfortable with it, so long as they are. I mean, working in a slick place like this? With _pay_ like this? I’d cozy up to the devil himself if I had to.”

“That’s good. The part about not minding Gabriel and Jack being around, I mean,” Winston says with a nervous little hint of a smile. “Though I am taking some precautions. We’ve talked things out and agreed that for now, the best thing is if they don’t interact any more than necessary. I’ll mediate anything that needs mediating. Ideally, once we’re up and running, they won’t even need to talk.”

“I guess that’s a plan,” Jesse shrugs, his brow furrowing under the shadow cast by the brim of his hat. “You’re a smart fella, and I don’t mean to question your business acumen, but… don’t you think bringing back the both of them seems irresponsible?”

“Well--”

“I mean, I wanna be here, Winston, I really do,” Jesse says, an edge of pleading in his voice as begins to fuss with his Stetson again, his hands eager for something to do. He hooks his boots over the bottom rung of the stool-- really digs his heels in. He’s bending the brim of his hat in his lap as he adds, “But what on earth makes you think things are gonna be better between ‘em this time?”

Winston bares his teeth in a sympathetic little smile. “Mostly an optimistic outlook on life,” he laughs.

Jesse hums in response, the answer falling short of satisfying. “Hope you got good insurance on this place,” he comments, gaze drifting around the beautifully furnished room. “Good _fire_ insurance.”

Winston cocks his head, his glasses sliding down his nose a fraction. His puzzled expression quickly turns, though, after a moment to process Jesse’s dry words. “Ah, right! I didn’t tell you yet,” he murmurs, nodding to himself. “I guess I was sort of thinking that… you might’ve heard it from someone else.”

“Heard what?”

“Something I discovered when I started taking steps to remodel and reopen this place,” Winston tells him as he peels a banana and dunks it into a jar of peanut butter held in one of his feet. “I didn’t originally intend to invite Gabriel or Jack back, for probably obvious reasons.”

“Well, let me just say, I’ve received lifetime bans from _several_ establishments for far less than burnin’ the damn place to the ground.” He huffs and wishes he had a cigarillo or a cigarette, even an electronic one.

“That’s the thing, though,” Winston tells him quietly. “I’m pretty sure they didn’t.”

“Didn’t what? Didn’t let the damn place burn down while they were fighting?”

“As bitter as Jack and Gabriel were in those last few months, they didn’t cause the fire that burned OverCoffee to the ground. Not even inadvertently.” He says it like simple fact, the same way he can spit out astrophysical theories as if they’re the most obvious thing in the world. “It wasn’t a mistake either of them made, and it had nothing to do with their scuffle.”

“Then what? There was a whole investigation! The paper said it was an oven, the electric--”

“I know everything in the report. And let’s just say that losing the shop ended up being _quite_ the windfall for the owners,” Winston interrupts, sighing heavily afterward.

Jesse scoffs, hard. “Arson for insurance money? Wouldn’t the firefighters or investigators-- oh. Oh,” he drawls, thinking back to what little he remembers of the suits that used to come by every now and then, how Jack would nudge him to stand up straight and Gabriel would start kneading dough with a little extra force. “One of the owners was in the chamber of commerce, and one had a husband on the city council. And the other--”

“They were all _very_ well connected,” Winston said with a chuffling little laugh. “I didn’t even realize the extent of it until I started digging deeper into their backgrounds. It also helps explain why they were so willing to write the thing off as Jack and Gabriel’s accident and just end things clean and easy. OverCoffee’s popularity had waned, quality and profits had dropped, and then there were those scandals over the sourcing of the ingredients. They may have thought it easier to jettison the whole thing and salvage as much money as they could, rather than sinking in money as it continued to decline.”

“Or, you know, they could’ve stopped interfering and breathing down our necks,” Jesse grumbled. “Whole thing was going swell til they got greedy and decided they knew how to work the place better than any of us did.”

“Yeah, that pretty much ended the golden years, huh?” the shop’s new owner agrees. “Anyway, I contacted the both Jack and Gabriel and let them know about my suspicions: that it wasn’t their fight that somehow caused a fire, and that I suspect the owners’ plan for insurance fraud unfortunately began while they were still inside after hours.”

“Blindsided them, did you?”

“It’s funny,” Winston says, face creasing in serious thought, “but neither of them seemed _that_ surprised. Gabriel was pissed, though. And to be honest, even then... I wasn’t sure about offering them another chance here. Fire aside, they _did_ make working here unbearable toward the end.”

“I hear you,” Jesse snorts. “But you’re gonna do it anyway, huh? Keep ‘em both on?”

“I think it’s worth a try. I like second chances. And I like the both of them, all things considered. They gave me a place where I felt welcome and useful and… normal,” the ape says, then chuckles, then shrugs. “Not like a zoo animal. Or a photo op. Anyway, they’ll both be around tomorrow, making preparations. You know. If you, uh, want to clear the air or something.”

“I guess I ought to,” Jesse grumbles. “Sooner rather than later.”

“Don’t worry over it too much,” Winston says. “It’ll be okay. They both asked about you specifically,” he adds while tapping his fingertips together in a repetitive, nervous gesture.

“About wringin’ my neck?”

“About whether I’d heard from you, how you’re doing. And whether or not you were coming back. I think they’re both as nervous as you are.”

“Me? Nervous? About my old bosses seein’ me for the first time since I ditched work and quit through a note on the fridge?” He scrunches his face, nose wrinkled and smile gone tight. “No way, no how. Anyway, I gotta thank you, big guy,” Jesse says as he drifts toward the door. “My last dozen jobs didn’t go over so well. Really needed this. And let me say, I am _real_ glad you didn’t ask me for any references.”

Winston’s little sigh is so familiar. “Uh, don’t worry about it, McCree. I don’t need anyone to tell me that you can make a mean apple turnover.”

“Damn straight,” Jesse agrees. “And my repertoire has only expanded. I can do stuff Gabriel never even taught me. You want croquembouche? I’m your huckleberry. So if there’s anything I can do for you, as a thank you--”

“Unlimited peanut butter cookies,” Winston says with the speed and surety of a man ordering his favorite standby from the menu. “Extra chewy.”

“You got it, boss,” Jesse assures him as he backs out the door, pointing playfully at his new employer.

* * *

 

When he arrives the next day and slips in through the backdoor again, it’s with the knowledge that both Gabriel and Jack are near and confrontation is inevitable.

The front of the house has been touched up a little more, rearranged to better accommodate the fifteen or so small tables carefully spaced throughout the room, plus the handful of plush armchairs and two comfortably wide couches.

He can smell breads and sweets baking already. Batch tests, he suspects. Gabriel getting a feel for the new appliances, trying out new recipes and ingredients. It smells heavenly, and the whiff of freshly roasted coffee beans that accompanies it doesn’t hurt either.

Jesse’s stomach rumbles noisily in response to the heady scent of sugary blueberry and savory cheese bread.

“Quiet down there,” he mutters to himself, only to be met with another gurgling groan pleading for food.

His boots click solidly against synthetic wood as he meanders around again, fingertips trailing over one glossy tabletop after another, until he stumbles across what he suspects is the best seat in the house-- a table tucked into the far back corner, right up against the window. It boasts a picturesque view of the street outside, thick with bustling crowds and the slow stream of fumeless cars hovering down the street, and even into the new park that lies just beyond.

It’ll be the perfect spot on afternoons when he wants to hang around after his shift, and maybe even during breaks. He can prop his feet up, sip his coffee, and people-watch until he feels like going home or Jack kicks him out for loitering.

“Jesse McCree!”

Another voice he hasn’t heard in close to five years, louder and clearer than ever before. Jesse barely has time to turn and brace himself before Genji is on him like a mosquito in May, arms cinched around his middle and the entirety of his weight slamming down on the tops of expensive leather boots.

Jesse bites back a groan at the pressure on his insteps, and the thought of how badly scuffed his handmade boots will be after this. He tries to hug back just as ferociously with his non-metal arm, and manages to squeeze out a quick “Missed you too, buddy,” through Genji’s boa-like embrace.

The man is only five-foot-four, strong as hell, and still sporting wild green hair that is oddly fitting with the new decor.

“Jesse McCree! You look _even more_ like a cowboy than you used to,” Genji says with faint awe. His voice has deepened slightly, evened out in pitch, though it still remains a unique blend of human tones and the synthesized audio of omnics-- the result of a fix to his vocal chords after they were heavily damaged in a car accident over a decade ago.

“Oh whoa, what’s this?” the small man asks before Jesse can even slip in an answer, his fingerless-gloved hands patting enthusiastically against the older man’s middle. “That’s different from before!”

“ _That_ would be a completely normal pattern of weight gain for a man in my age bracket, thank you very much,” Jesse says. After another few minutes of prodding-- consisting of Genji gently pressing the pads of his fingers into the small accumulation of pudge around his waist-- Jesse finally swats the pesky hands away. “It’s just a couple of lovehandles, and those never hurt nobody.”

“Are they really called _lovehandles_?” Genji asks in a stage whisper, eyes wide in his excitement. He tilts his head like a bird spying something shiny or seed-shaped. “I like them! And this!” he adds, reaching up the scritch at the thick mat of facial hair Jesse has accumulated over the intervening years. “I feel like it should have a name, like a pet--”

“No,” Jesse groans, leaning his head back to evade twitchy little fingers. “I may just shave it all off one day anyway. Better if you don’t get too attached.”

“No! Keep it!” Genji cries, standing on tiptoe to rub his palms up and down Jesse’ stubbly cheeks.

Jesse sighs but allows it, feeling some measure of obligation to the highly energetic Japanese man now carding fingers through his shaggy hair to survey its length. He can’t deny, too, that he gets a little tingle of enjoyment at some kind of human touch, and it’s been awhile since he’s even _had_ a friend to let cross his personal boundaries.

Genji eventually finishes his examination and, satisfied that he has taken note of all the ways Jesse has physically changed over the last five years, finally settles back on his heels and sighs.

He hardly seems to have aged at all. Certainly he doesn’t look his full thirty-five. The only real difference that Jesse can note is that maybe his scars have further faded with time, the discolored skin banding his throat and jaw having evened out in tone a bit more. He’s dressed in sweats and a hoodie and sneakers that lace up to his mid-calf. They light up with every step, flashing green and scrolling his name across the toe in neon lettering.

“Good Lord,” Jesse comments. His slightly bushy eyebrows raise a hair higher when Genji turns to show him the wheels affixed to the heel of the sole. “Do you happen to know if those come in a western boot?”

“McCree,” Genji says with a laugh and a shake of his head, arms wrapping around Jesse again-- gentler this time, fiercely warm but soft. He buries his face in plaid fabric that is stiff from line-drying to hide the faintest sniffle. “I missed you _so much_. You changed your number,” he moans, “and you never texted me! You never emailed! Nothing! You even stopped playing Hearthstone. Five years and not a single status update, not one call.”

“You know I’ve never been one for that stuff,” Jesse replies, acutely uncomfortable as he tries to smooth Genji’s ruffled feathers. He pats the smaller man’s back in what is likely the most awkward attempt at offering comfort since Jack and Reinhardt once tried to ease him out of a rough break-up by offering to take him out clubbing. “Not like I had much of importance to say, anyway--”

“You could have been dead,” Genji snaps, holding him at arm’s length to fix him with a glare. “Or back with the Deadlock Gang, or working in a _new_ coffee shop with _new_ friends. I almost hired someone to hunt you down, but Angela said that we should respect your decision and let you come back in your own time. It was a terribly long wait, McCree,” the small man reminds him.

“I know. I did you wrong. Didn’t mean to make you worry-- honest.”

“Of course I worried! We all did, McCree. We are friends, aren’t we?”

“Course,” Jesse says, red-faced and tight-lipped. He removes his hat and dips his head. “I’m sorry, Genji. Wasn’t real friendly of me to leave you danglin’ like that.”

Genji hums and crosses his arms, as if he has to weigh Jesse’s apology. But forgiveness comes as quickly as ever, and a few more seconds have him sidling back up to Jesse like old times, practically standing atop his boots again. “You could have stayed at my place, you know, if you wanted to avoid _certain people_. You _always_ can stay with us. And if I had known all it would take to bring you back was a new coffee shop, I would have done it the day after they put out the fire,” Genji continues, gesturing to the space around them, faintly indignant. 

“Genji…” He sighs and refits his hat snugly over his temples. “I appreciate that. And I do apologize. So, how are things with Angela?”

“You’re changing the subject,” Genji says dryly. “But I want to tell you everything I haven’t been able to _for the last five years_ , so I’ll allow it. Everything is good with us,” he states with an emphatic nod. “We went to Cairo on holiday last year, and to the Stuttgart Olympics with Reinhardt and Ana, and I got briefly arrested for public intoxication, and later I developed an allergy to olives and capers, and we adopted an old cat. You should really read my blog to catch up on everything.”

Jesse makes a noncommittal noise and tries to shift the conversation again. “And how’s Fareeha?”

“Also good!” he says, nodding. “The cat is hairless, for her sake. She’s in Mumbai right now for some Helix conference, though. Bast-chan misses her. I bet Gabriel has missed you sorely--”

“Say, I can’t help but notice you’re still wearin’ those old-fashioned braces,” Jesse diverts again, knowing by Genji’s sly smile that these same topics will be revisited again, and probably sooner than he’d like.

“Yes. They’re cool, right?” Genji says as he flashes Jesse a wide-mouthed grin, revealing neatly ordered-- if occasionally chipped-- teeth decked in silvery metal with neon green brackets. “I mean, I had to wear them for so long after the accident that it would feel strange to not have them anymore… and I always liked the way they looked, anyway. So I decided to keep them,” he says with a shrug.

“They do kinda tie your look together,” Jesse agrees, playfully teasing at the wispy spikes of Genji’s green hair.

“Absolutely! Between these and all the screws and rods, the nanofillers, the prosthetics and my vocal amplifier, I am like… twenty-seven-percent omnic. I had a couple of surgeries last year, and they actually used nanotech to realign and replace some of the screws and things in my hands. _Much_ better now,” he adds, peeling off his glove to show Jesse the fluid movement of his fingers.

Jesse whistles low and takes Genji’s hand in his own, honestly marveling at how much better his joints look, how easily he can now make a fist. “The doctor does good work. Bet it’s helped your game.”

Genji’s laugh is dark, vaguely sinister, somewhat concerning. “I _own_ the arcade now. It isn’t even a contest anymore. I think I may even be better now than I was in Hanamura. Amazing, right?”

“Pretty impressive. Noticed your pipes sound a little different, too,” Jesse says with a half-smile, his hand moving to his own throat without really thinking.

“Ah, yes, Angela improved upon my old synthesizer. I have better range now, and volume. She regrets that part, I think…”

“Did you really need it? Seemed like you managed to get pretty loud before,” he thinks aloud. “Damn near defended me when we went to Disneyland and rode the what’s-it-called--”

“Aha,” Genji says, nodding and chuckling to himself. “I remember that! I can go about fifteen, twenty decibels higher now. Do you want to hear?”

“I’m good, actually,” Jesse rushes to say before Genji decides to give his eardrums a thrashing. “And how do you like this place so far? Pretty different from how it used to be.”

“Oh,” Genji says softly, grabbing Jesse’s hand and squeezing it. “I love it. It reminds me of parts of my old home, in the gardens. Weird, right? Anyway, it’s very relaxing. Just imagine it on a rainy day… I think Zenyatta will like it as well.”

“Your therapist?”

“He’s not…” Genji’s cheeks and ears flush beet-red. “I’m not _officially_ his patient anymore--”

“This is sounding _awful_ familiar,” Jesse grins, laughing as his friend begins to squirm in place. “Startin’ to think you have a type-- healthcare providers.”

“N-no. We just hang out, talk. He’s been teaching me to meditate.”

“I thought you said that meditation was--”

“A waste of time, a boring thing my brother likes to do, glorified daydreaming. I know,” Genji huffs, “but it can actually be really nice. You are welcome try it with us sometime. He is very good, and mindful meditation might help you in, ah… handling stress.”

Jesse grimaces, though he knows Genji’s suggestion comes with sweet intentions. “Mm. Maybe. Wager I’ll be awful stressed stuck between Gabriel and Jack again. Hope my hair doesn’t start fallin’ out.”

“You can afford to lose some, McCree,” Genji says, tone unconcerned as he begins to pick stray brown hairs from the taller man's shoulders.

They lounge around as the rest of the crew filters in over the next twenty minutes or so. Jesse’s stomach sinks each time the door opens, then recovers a fraction when it’s only Lena, only Winston, only Reinhardt.

“My friends!” the hulking German greets as he sweeps into the room, so broad he has to angle himself to pass through the door. “Lena! Genji! McCree! Winston! It’s so good to see you!”

Lena manages to evade the crushing hug that sweeps up both Jesse and Genji, of course, because she’s quick as a whip. The two of them dangle for a few breathless seconds, toes off the floor, arms squeezed to their sides, Genji’s spiky bracelet jabbing him in the hip and his own prosthetic arm surely poking him back.

“It has been too long! I made candy for everyone, and I brought wurst,” he says proudly, setting them down to remove a normal-sized backpack that looks comically small when anywhere in the vicinity of Reinhardt’s seven-foot frame. “And for you, McCree, some of that Eichenwalde ale you liked so much! And for you, Genji, I brought a sweet rhubarb stout. Look, the bottle is green, just like a certain _some_ one!”

“Nice, I love it!” Genji cheers, bouncing up to grab Reinhardt’s shoulders in a hug. “But what is a rhubarb?”

Jesse chimes in first, suddenly thinking of cobblers and jams. “Looks like pinkish celery. Tastes good with strawberries. I might could make you some strawberry-rhubarb pie--”

“Yes, make me a pie! With cheese on top of the crust--”

“Genji, _no_ \--”

“Where is _my_ beer, Reinhardt?” Lena asks, suddenly bobbing at his side. She gives him a quick hug, her arms barely making it all the way around his waist. “And Winston’s?”

“For you, my dear, I have brought a wonderful sunflower beer,” he says, pulling a bubble-wrapped bottle from his bag. “And for Winston, a whole keg of the finest brew in Stuttgart! I took the liberty of leaving it in the hallway.”

 “That’s not really… well, thank you, Reinhardt,” Winston says sheepishly, never having been one to drink. He glances sidelong at Jesse and shrugs his furred shoulders, a buoyant smile in place as Reinhardt pulls him into an embrace.

 “Of course, my friend! After all you have done in organizing this for us, it is really the least I could do,” Reinhardt assures him at maximum volume, making the ape wince slightly. “And you will _love_ some of the candies I have here,” he adds, rummaging a giant hand through his bag.

“Well, as soon as Jack and Gabriel join us, we can start the first order of business,” Winston says with a toothy wide grin. He plunks himself down beside a table with an air of excited anticipation, pulls out a sleek unbranded tablet, and adjusts his glasses. “Actually naming this place. OverCoffee is both dead and trademarked, so we need something new. Distinct. Memorable.”

“Oh, that’s easy,” Jesse scoffs, lifting the brim of his hat with two fingers to get a better eye on Winston. “My suggestion is the same as ever. _Wake and Bake_. You got your coffee, and then you got your breads, your pastries, your cookies,” Jesse rattles off, ticking each item off on a finger. "It's perfect!"

“It has connotations,” a gruff voice says from somewhere near the back hallway.

It’s Jack, his arms crossed tight and stand-offish. His shirt and jeans are paint-splattered and stained, and he doesn’t greet any of them with much more than a nod.

Jesse grins in spite of the sudden doubletime thumping of his heart and aims a fingergun Jack’s way. “ _Good_ connotations--”

“Not good for business, Jesse. Well, _our_ kind of business, at least,” he concedes.

The air cools another ten degrees when the kitchen door swings wide and Gabriel walks in, flour dusting his black apron. He wipes his hands on a hand towel crammed in the front pocket and then squares his stance. Not once does he glance in Jack’s direction.

“Do you have a suggestion to make, Jack?” Winston asks the old man, whose last words had gone dry and faint at the first whiff of Gabriel.

Jack waits a beat before responding. “No.”

“I’ve got one,” Gabriel announces, and Jesse grimaces preemptively. “Burned to the Grounds,” the baker says to a chorus of faint groans and Reinhardt’s gasped ‘too soon’.

Jesse finds Winston staring, wide-eyed and slightly slack-jawed, and worries suddenly that Gabriel and Jack might just run roughshod right over the poor guy. “Unfortunately apt,” Winstons recovers after a moment, “but that isn’t exactly what we’re looking for--”

“I know the perfect name,” Genji interrupts, unable to contain an impish smile. He says something in Japanese, and then adds, “It means a place of peace and seclusion--”

“No, no, no,” Jesse interrupts, a hand held up to silence his friend. “There’s no way that’s what it means. It’s a cuss or something filthy, and ain’t no one here fallin’ for that _again_ \--”

“Alright, actual suggestions, actual suggestions,” Winston speaks over them. “Reinhardt? Gabriel? Jack?”

“Every name I can think of would work better for a brewery,” Reinhardt says apologetically. “Oh! Could we perhaps open one of those sometime?”

“Jack and the Magic Beans,” Gabriel says, stone-faced and teasing. He yawns when the man in question finally looks his way and huffs.

“Gabriel’s Warm Buns,” Jack counters, shooting his ex a withering glare, “since you’re not taking this seriously anyway.”

“Or,” Lena pipes up, an edge of desperation in her eyes as she sees the situation careening out of Winston’s control. “Or, we could compromise, yeah? Warm Buns and Magic Beans! That’s kind of cute, I guess,” she says, pulling a worried expression.

“Um, yeah. I’m going to sleep on all of these contributions,” Winston sighs, his broad fingers at his temples. He slumps a little as chatter continues around the room. “Um, good meeting. I suppose that’s all for now. See you all tomorrow.”

“Uh, sorry, big guy,” Jesse apologizes as the group begins to filter out-- Jack and Gabriel both disappear wordlessly, while Reinhardt and Genji boisterously announce they’re headed to a bar. Lena lingers nearby, grinning broadly as Jesse sympathetically pats Winston’s arm with his prosthetic hand.

“It’s ok, McCree. Not really what I hoped for, but kind of what I expected.”

“Huh. You’ve got the bar for us set pretty low, don’t you?”

“I think it’s probably safest that way,”  Winston says carefully. “I think it’ll get better, though. It certainly could’ve been worse,” he adds.

“Yeah,” Jesse agrees. “On the bright side, Gabriel and Jack barely spat venom at each other. And neither of them even acknowledged me, which, I mean-- phew, right?” he laughs.

“Oh, McCree,” Winston says, voice dropping to a whisper. “I think that’s more a function of them not wanting to have their first interaction with you in a room full of people. And, you know, probably not with the other one around.”

Jesse hums softly. “I guess.”

“You okay?”

“I’m just skippy,” Jesse says with an easy smile. “Gonna go talk to Gabriel, I suppose.”

“We’ll come looking for you if we don’t hear from you in an hour,” Lena assures him, still grinning toothily. She rocks back and forth in her cross-legged perch on a table, patting the top of the tupperware Reinhardt left behind. “And make sure you grab some wurst before you leave-- there’s like thirty in here. Or would you rather have a bite before you go see Gabriel? Like, a last meal sort of a deal?”

“ _Lena_ ,” Winston says through clenched teeth, stressing each syllable.

“I’m comin’ back for it. Count on it,” Jesse says as he backs toward the kitchen, pointing at the sausage-filled container as he makes his promise. “Been awhile since I’ve eaten anything that don’t come from the gas station by my place.”

He waves off the pair’s groans and gentle chastisements over his life choices and begins to whistle a low, slow dirge as he walks to the kitchen door. He can hear the radio faintly through the dark-stained wood, the sounds of a running stand-mixer slipping through the narrow gaps around the door. If he stopped and listened a little longer, more intently, he’d probably hear Gabriel singing to himself, too.

Jesse shoulders through the door without looking back. Or forward, really. He averts his eyes first thing, fixes them on something innocuous and incapable of staring back; Gabriel’s apron works just fine. He feels like he’s seventeen again, a scruffy charity case fresh off the street, distracted by the warm and comforting scent of good food.

“Was starting to think you’d leave without stopping by,” is all Gabriel says at first.

Jesse ventures a direct glance and finds he’s not the only one avoiding eye contact.

Gabriel’s busy, maybe intentionally so, his hands protected only by a white hand towel as he pulls a tray of chocolate-chip cookies from the oven. They overwhelm the kitchen with the scent of sweetness and cinnamon and warm, melted chocolate. He’s methodical as he sets them to cool and then checks the other ovens, silent except for his faint humming of a song that Jesse doesn’t immediately recognize.

There a few discarded loaves of bread sitting on the counter, scorched on the ends. It’s unlike Gabriel to make mistakes like that, even with new equipment. “Well, everything you’ve been making smells so good, I just had to come around. Can I take one of these?”

Gabriel looks at him straight for the first time: Jesse McCree, holding a loaf of burned challah, in stained plaid flannel and an overgrown beard and ornate boots with spurs. If he has a comment to make on his protege’s whole-hearted embrace of the cowboy aesthetic, he withholds it for the moment.

His beard is still even and neatly trimmed, though flecked through with grey and white. Same scars, souvenirs from a short tour of duty when he was in his early twenties. A lot of Gabriel is just the same as Jesse remembers.

“Go for it. Hey,” the older man adds abruptly, standing there with his knuckles braced on the countertop. “How have you been?”

“Me?” Jesse asks, eyebrows raised at his own needless question. “I’ve been okay. Just landed a sweet new job,” he says, earning him the smallest quirk of Gabe’s lips. “How about you?”

“It’s been...” Gabriel doesn’t manage an answer. He sighs sharply, licking at his teeth in some kind of agitation before continuing. “You were really okay? Swear to God? No return to your roots?”

“No,” Jesse says, suddenly hot behind the ears, “I didn’t return to my childhood of crime, if that’s what you’re concerned about. I worked honest jobs, Gabriel. Shitty, lawful jobs where I catered and decorated cakes and served slop in cafeterias. Jesus Christ--”

“Hey, I’m sorry,” Gabriel cuts in, sharp as a knife. “I just wanted to make sure--”

“That you wouldn’t have to reform a criminal _again_?”

“That you weren’t in a bad spot after you left,” Gabriel snaps, turning back to the ovens. There is a forceful purpose to his movements, though he remains ever gentle with the appliances. “That you didn’t run off and wind up struggling, too stubborn to ask me for anything. Too pissed at us to ask for help, even if you really needed it.”

“I did fine. Honestly,” Jesse huffs, his irritation now accompanied by guilt and warm-bellied fondness. “Usually you’re crowin’ about how much you taught me. Where’s that attitude now? You did a good job, okay? I never had to go hungry or pick any pockets. I’ve got more life skills than what Deadlock gave me, you know.”

Gabriel’s sigh is drowned out by the blaring beep of one of the ovens. “You should go talk to Jack, too.”

“Look at that. You managed to say his name without even grinding your teeth,” Jesse laughs, though the room feels suddenly close, stifling, and it isn’t because of the heat billowing from the open oven.

The baker turns and pins him with a dark glare. “We’re both mature professionals,” he grumbles, more to himself than his old assistant. “He used to worry about finding you on one of his calls. I was afraid of that, too.”

“Well, surprise,” Jesse drawls. “I didn’t wind up in a gutter. Not my fault y’all always assume the worst.”

“Just go be a grown up and say hi,” Gabriel snaps as he starts slicing dough into even sections. “Then get your cowboy ass back in here so I can show you how I want things done tomorrow morning. And we’re going to talk about _this_ , too,” he adds, using the knife in his hand to gesture up and down Jesse’s frame.

“What part of it?” Jesse asks, a hand going instinctively to the rhinestone bolo tie resting just below his collar.

“All of it,” Gabriel sighs, pausing in his work to look the younger man over again, from the oversized hat to the tattered plaid shirt with mismatched buttons to the patchwork jeans emblazoned with _multiple_ American flags. “Now go, go. Hurry up and talk to him before he comes asking me about you.”

“ _Mature professionals_ ,” Jesse scoffs at Gabriel as he backs out of the kitchen and half-heartedly begins a search for Jack.

Their one-time boss isn’t in the office, or the storage room, or the front of the house. Jesse even pops into the bathroom-- which is pristine for the moment, as of yet untouched by hordes of customers-- and still finds no sign of the man.

He decides to take a smoke break before returning to the kitchen to deliver news, mainly to ensure Gabriel can’t accuse him of not putting enough time or effort into looking. And partially to steady his nerves, if he has to be honest.

Jesse slips out the back door, already pulling an auto-light cigarette from his breast pocket, when he catches a flash of white and ultramarine from the corner of his eye and finds Jack standing in the alley, smoking.

He does a double-take, tempted even to rub his eyes and make sure he’s seeing straight. “Jack? What the hell?” he asks, startling the other man from whatever his thoughts were.

“Jesse,” Jack responds automatically, blue eyes first wide, then narrowed. “What?”

Jesse mimes the cigarette held to the older man’s lips. It’s old-fashioned paper, hand-rolled, and looks suspiciously like one of Gabriel’s. “Seriously? After all the times you lectured me and Gabe on what a terrible habit it is?”

“It still is,” Jack shrugs. He glances at Jesse and grimaces. “Hey. Don’t tell Gabriel I took one from his jacket?”

“I won’t volunteer that information, but if he asks me, you know I’m gonna squeal like a rusty omnic.”

“Yeah. That’s fine. Really shouldn’t be askin’ you to lie to him, anyway.” He exhales slow and then blinks as the smoke wafts back into his eyes. “Just helps to relax for a little while.”

“Oh. If you’re looking to de-stress, there’s stronger stuff than nicotine--”

“I’m good,” Jack says, waving him off. “I have a shift after this.”

“Right,” Jesse mutters, lips pressing tight together. “EMT stuff still? How’s that been?”

“The usual mixed bag,” Jack says, turning slowly on his heels to properly face the younger man. He keeps one hand shoved in the pocket of his blue and white jacket. “Finally went ahead and got my paramedic license.”

“Oh, hey, did you really? Listen, I haven’t been to the doctor in a few years--”

“Jesse,” Jack groans, managing to sound both sharp and exhausted at once.

“I know, I know,” he sighs. “Can you make me an appointment somewhere? Or the next time Angela comes by, ask her to pop back in the kitchen?”

“That’s not-- you’re _thirty-seven._ You need to go to an actual doctor’s office with actual medical equipment--”

“Okay,” Jesse drawls, resisting a powerful urge to roll his eyes, “but in the meantime, can you look at this mole on my back?”

“I’m just gonna tell you to see a real doctor,” Jack sighs, the cigarette still held between his lips as Jesse turns and lifts his shirttail and blindly points at a dark spot above his hip.

“What’s goin’ on there, medic?”

“Jesse, it looks like a freckle. But I’d consult a doctor if you’re concerned,” Jack says. “You ever use sunscreen?”

“You know damn well I don’t,” the younger man says as he wrenches his shirt back down and tucks in the uneven tails. “And I sure as hell don’t need a lecture about it. I know all of yours by heart. ‘Jesse, eat some vegetables. Jesse, chips aren’t a vegetable. Jesse, don’t bite your nails. Jesse, trim your nails, for God’s sake. Jesse, don’t try to do a backflip from the dumpster to impress the garbage man. Jesse, stop flirting with the garbage man while I get you in this neck brace.’”

“Yeah, I remember that,” Jack chuckles, soft and gravelly as he takes one of the last few draws off of the cigarette. “And he never even called you.”

“Total waste of effort on my part,” Jesse agrees. “I expected _at least_ a pity date after that, to be honest.”

“Seen anyone worthwhile lately?” Jack ventures after a drawn lull in their conversation stretches too long.

“Naw,” Jesse almost chuckles. “You?”

“Nope,” Jack says with one last puff on Gabriel’s cigarette. He crouches to put it out against the concrete and then makes sure to deposit the butt in the dumpster. “Been busy. What’s your excuse?”

“Well, you’d be surprised how many people get turned off when they realize I don’t work in a themed restaurant,” Jesse shrugs. “Or have a small part in a period piece.”

Jack hovers at his side a moment on his way back inside, hands still shoved in the pockets of his light blue track jacket. He withdraws one to gently squeeze Jesse’s shoulder, saying nothing.

Jesse tries not to stare at all the signs of Jack’s aging, far progressed from when he last saw the man-- the hair gone bone-white, not a trace of blond left behind; the extra crows feet at the corners of his eyes; the receded hairline and grey stubble and the gravelier timbre of his voice. He’s younger than Gabriel by a few years, but he hardly looks it anymore.

And then there are the two raised scars that cut across the older man’s nose and mouth. Jesse stifles himself before he can question when and how Jack got them; he suspects he already knows. An observation that Jack better matches Gabriel sits squarely on his tongue, in absolutely no danger of ever passing his lips.

“I’m glad you came back in one piece, Jesse.” Jack’s voice finally warms through, softens like butter. He smiles and for a second he’s the Jack that Jesse knows from camping trips and fishing expeditions, daytrips to Disneyland, late nights studying for the GED and slow afternoons spent learning to put landscapes and pokemon into latte foam. 

“I swear, you and Gabe both act like I’m still a seventeen year old dumbass. I can manage,” Jesse laughs, half-exasperated that they worried so, half-relieved that he’s been missed. His grin fades the moment he sees Jack’s expression harden at the mere mention of his ex.

 “In our defense,” the man says after a moment to collect his words and draw back into himself a safe distance, “you apparently still rely on us to make your appointments and you’re walkin’ around looking like an extra from a western.”

“Reinhardt dresses up like a knight and no one gives him a hard time about it,” Jesse mutters indignantly as he follows Jack inside, walking with care so as to avoid jangling his spurs too loudly. Belatedly, he realizes he never did have his own smoke.

“Because he LARPs on his own time.” Jack makes sure the door locks securely behind them, the faint glow of the console on the wall next to it their only source of light in the dim hallway. “He’s gonna want to get you some new clothes, you know,” he tells Jesse with the slow seriousness of a warning, tone gruffer when he’s speaking of Gabriel. “You ought to let him.”

“Shopping with him is the worst,” Jesse mumbles, feeling anticipation despite himself and his better senses. It’ll be four to six hours of Gabriel dragging him from store to store, trapping him in the dressing room with an ever growing mound of outfits to try on, and then purging his closet to make room for new acquisitions; Gabriel critiquing his clothes, humming as he takes fifty different measurements, bitching at him for holding on to holey socks and bleach-stained denim jackets and threadbare underwear.

And Jesse knows he must be out of his damned mind to be _looking forward_ to the prospect.

“I know,” Jack sighs, “but it’d make him _happy_. And a happy Gabe is better than a grouchy one, right?”

Jesse’ll give him that.

* * *

 

The opening of Athena’s Grounds (Winston’s final decision after vetoing every other suggestion and getting exhausted of the bickering) is lackluster. Only ten or so customers wander in and end up ordering drinks, though their reactions are overwhelmingly positive; another dozen come specifically to order cakes from locally renowned pastry chef Gabriel Reyes, all in mourning over his recent departure from the fine dining restaurant owned by his sister.

The meager morning crowd quickly dissipates, and for a long spell they have no customers at all. When Jesse pops out of the kitchen with muffins and scones and brownies, he finds the display case fuller than he’d anticipated.

Lena generously “helps” by taking a few brownies off his hands, stuffing her cheeks like a squirrel while watching him try to cram as many pastries as possible into the allotted spaces within the case.

“Honey, you gotta push these--”

“To who?” she asks, her chocolate crumb flecked hand shielding her eyes as she swivels her head around, miming a search for customers.

“Fair point.” Jesse grimaces as he stands up straight, already feeling a dull lance of pain at the base of his spine.

Gabriel doesn’t say much when Jesse comes back into the kitchen with trays still laden with pastries and sweets. But he does turn off the warmed ovens readily awaiting additional batches, rapping against the digital screens with flour-dusted knuckles rather than flour-coated fingers. He then shifts abruptly to tidying up while the last loaves of bread and cookies finish baking.

Gabriel doesn’t _need_ help at this point, by his own insistence, and the usual routine would’ve had Jesse out front now to help make drinks and charm customers.

It’s still slow as molasses at the counter, though, and Jesse’s been up and at it since four-thirty. He decides to fix himself a drink and take a well deserved break instead-- grab a couple of cookies and slather some whipped cream between them, prop up his sore feet and maybe browse around on his phone for some orthopedic boots, since Gabe won’t let him slack for a second.

He’s just gotten himself a cup and settled on a light roast when Jesse notices one of their two customers sitting at the very table he’d liked so much yesterday.

“It figures,” he sighs to himself and the Bastion espresso machine. More than a dozen other tables are vacant, and the plush couches, too-- but it’s the one spot where he’d been looking forward to kicking up his heels that’s occupied.

Lena’s busy troubleshooting something on the chip scanner and Jack is elsewhere, retrieving straws or shaved chocolate, leaving Jesse not much else to do but study the customer that unwittingly stole his seat.

The man is alternating between staring out the window and dragging his fingers across a fancy, wafer-thin Vishkar light tablet, manipulating the projected holoscreen by hand. He’s wearing sleek and fitted jogging clothes and black-on-black running shoes, his long hair confined to a tight ponytail.

Some kind of investment banker or executive, Jesse speculates. The kind that’s unable to keep his hands off of his work, by the looks of it. The fella sure can hit the gym, though-- the pythons straining at the confines of his pushed-up sleeves are a testament to it. Handsome, too, if a little severe looking when he’s focused.

Jesse stares a second longer than he should and ends up scalding himself as steamed milk spills over and onto his hand.

* * *

 

The next day brings in a fresh tide of customers, impatient and uncaffeinated, filling the tables and standing in clumps around the service counter while they wait for to-go orders. There’s no time to chat, no time to flirt, no time to even stand idle.

Between word-of-mouth and a flurry of social media mentions-- most of which Jesse reckons could probably be traced back to a bored Genji making the best of an afternoon shift on a slow first day-- they’re faced with an unanticipated surge of interest.

The front of the cafe is so hectic that Jack pulls him from the kitchen early, leaving Gabriel to manage on his own. The two of them whisper-bicker whenever Gabriel emerges with another two dozen muffins and bear claws for the display case, though the urgency of the rush keeps them from getting mired in an out-and-out argument.

As the rush slows to a trickle near the end of his shift, Jesse starts making plans to stick around through the afternoon-- grab a handpie and some cookies for lunch, then bother Genji while he’s working, then hang around in the kitchen until Gabriel relents and lets him help decorate the cakes.

Almost every table is still taken, though humans and omnics alike soon begin to leave by ones and twos. Jesse leans a bit over the counter to take a gander at the table in the corner, hoping he’ll be able to swoop in as soon as its current occupant moseys on out of the cafe.

But the same stern-faced man sits there again today, nothing but his phone and tablet resting on the tabletop. His suit is dark and sleek, slashed with white here and there; his hair is the same, his greying temples cutting a sharp contrast with the rest of his inky black hair.

Jesse ends up wiping down every inch of machinery and counter space while he waits to see if the man means to part from the spot anytime soon.

He doesn’t.

* * *

 

On the third day, Jesse spies the table squatter first thing, soon as they open. He can scarcely believe it, but there he is, already settled in at seven-oh-eight.

This time he’s in a silky white tank that shows off thick biceps and bares a fair amount of chest. An elaborate tattoo—previously covered by crisply cuffed sleeves or a suit jacket—winds up his arm from wrist to shoulder, ink spreading down over his chest. He wears his shades inside to counter the direct sunlight pouring in through the window, though he doesn’t seem to object at all to basking in the morning rays.

With a crick in his neck and stack of breakfast pastries in hand, Jesse stoops behind the counter to refill the counter display. He can only surmise that Dragon Tattoo is an instant fan of _something_ here-- the coffee, the sweets, the decor?-- and has the latitude to spend every hour of the work day camped out in a cafe.

When there’s a moment’s lull in the morning rush, Jesse asks Lena and Jack if they remember serving the guy in the corner. It’s eating him up wondering what’s got Dragon Tattoo sitting there like a permanent fixture, and he’s never actually seen food or drink on the man’s table-- not even an empty plate or cup.

Jack grumbles something about Genji and then detaches from the conversation, distracted as Winston ambles up with two different mug designs to get his opinion on. Lena is only slightly more helpful.

“A lost cause, I think,” she says as she struggles to grab a stack of cups on the highest shelf behind the counter. Her crocs squeak as she bounces in place, a hand flailing for what’s just beyond her reach. “I wouldn’t take it personally, love. Genji said he flat out refuses to try anything we have here. He said he ‘finds it all unappealing’.”

“Are you kiddin’ me? He really said that?” He reaches over Lena and pulls the cups down, flour from his fingers transferring to the black bio-degrade material. He hooks his thumbs in the waistband of his jeans, jaw working wordlessly until he can find the words to match his irritation. “And then he has the _nerve_ to come in here every day and loaf around?”

“Well, yes?” Lena answers, throwing Jesse a quizzical glance. She takes her cups and scoots around him to start blending ice and coffee.

Jesse mulls it over for the rest of his shift in the kitchen, as confused by the lack of a reaction from either Lena or Jack as he is by anyone who’d frequent a cafe they don’t even like. He wonders about Genji, too-- Jesse’d never known the man to have patience for a customer being rude, especially about the food.

It sticks in his craw for a good long while, but it isn’t until he’s hanging around Gabriel that he’s able to put a finer point on the reason for his indignation.

The pastry chef stands awkwardly braced against the stainless steel table, a sumptuous cake before him, intent on finishing a complicated pattern of buttercream fish scales _just right_. He’s got his lower lip held between his teeth as he works, smiling despite the repetitive strain as he carefully pipes delicate details for another few minutes; when he settles back and slowly spins the finished cake, he nearly beams. 

Gabriel only notices Jesse staring at him when the wannabe-cowboy chuckles, attempting to stifle the sound behind his hand a moment too late.

“What?” Gabriel asks, clearly unaware of the streaks of orange icing smeared across his cheek and temple.

“Nothin’,” Jesse says, knuckles pressed to his lips to hide his smile. “Looks mighty fine,” he adds.

“It does,” the man agrees, still slowly rotating the cake as he gazes down fondly on his latest creation.

“I like how you did the water. Looks like rippled glass,” Jesse says, nibbling the tip of his thumbnail as he studies his boss’s work-- it’s elaborate, painstaking, the dedicated work of hours. And surely as delicious as it looks. He tries in vain to puzzle out how Gabriel could make whipped icing so glossy and perfectly waved, so artfully colored; it must be something he picked up or figured out recently.

“I could show you how to do it,” Gabriel says after a moment’s consideration. Warm brown eyes flit to Jesse, then back to the cake so that he can carefully cover it with a domed glass lid.

Jesse grins wild and giddy, unable to tamp down on his smile. “Does that mean you trust me doin’ your cakes again?”

Gabriel hums thoughtfully, the noise so low pitched it sounds more like a growl. “That depends. Can I trust you not to ruin them? And my reputation? _Again_?”

“Absolutely, you can. You’ve got my word. No more shortcuts or slackin’ off or samplin’ the merchandise.” Jesse mimes tipping his hat-- Gabe won’t let him wear it in the kitchen, and it’d look a little ridiculous over a hairnet anyway-- and sidles up to the chef’s side. “Never too late to learn a new trick, huh?”

“No,” Gabriel agrees in his low rumble. “Grab that red velvet on the cooling rack. We’ll practice with it. Pay attention-- there are eight steps, and I don’t have time to repeat myself. Pick a palette you like and we’ll get started.”

* * *

 

Every day is busy from then on out-- busier than Jesse’s been in years. His hands don’t get to rest idle and his mind doesn’t, either.

It makes for smoother working alongside Gabriel and Jack, if nothing else. They’re too rushed to bicker; too pressed to prepare for the next wave, the next day. It doesn’t stop them glaring at each other whenever they cross paths.

Jesse works elbow-to-elbow with Jack during one morning rush, fixing drinks almost as fast as the old man but nowhere near as pretty. He feels a little clumsy with his prosthetic, which is long overdue for a tune-up; a recalibration would probably work wonders for keeping a steady hand, and then he might actually manage to do more than wonky smiley faces and leaves.

Meanwhile, Jack might as well be making the Mocha Lisa over there in his cup, working in foamed milk and chocolate shavings until he’s made a goddamn _portrait_ of the customer.

Jesse curses under his breath as Jack’s customer receives her latte with an exuberant gasp and hurries to show her friends. “Hey, you wanna maybe lower the bar a little so we’re at least producing consistent drinks?”

“Maybe you could raise your bar instead,” Jack suggests, shooting him a grin before ducking under the counter for more milk. “You get rusty since you been gone?”

“Uh, yeah. On multiple counts,” he mutters as he fidgets with his arm.

Jack’s grin turns into a tight-lipped frown. “You still haven’t gone to a doctor? Jesse--”

“I thought you were makin’ me an appointment,” Jesse hisses under his breath before smiling at an approaching woman. “Howdy, ma’am. What can I get you today?”

“Oh, I’d like to try the Glenwales espresso, please.”

“Uh,” Jesse stalls, glancing to Jack for direction. “Sure. To go, maybe?”

“No, for here,” she said, already fishing for her phone to pay. “I’m just dying to try it! The sign outside made it sound so good--”

“Ma’am, Glenwales is essentially motor oil,” Jack cuts in. “Not meant for human consumption. Can I make you something _non_ -toxic instead? From our extensive menu of human-oriented drinks?” he says, gesturing in frustration to the two giant chalkboards filled with everything from café Americanos to blended mocha shakes.

“I don’t know… I really wanted to try the Glenwales Organic Oil. It just sounds so good--”

“It is. For _omnics_.”

He coaxes her into ordering a cappuccino, sans motor oil, and maintains a barebones version of polite service through her disgruntled glaring and muttering about ‘just wanting to try the Glenwales’.

“Shoot, your fuse has gotten shorter,” Jesse comments after Jack finishes up with the next string of customers. “You looked about ready to kick her to the curb. What happened to Mr. Customer Service?” he teases.

“You have no idea how many calls I’ve had to go on for people like her,” Jack almost growls as he toes shut one of the bottom cabinets that Jesse left wide open. “‘Hello, 9-1-1? I saw a commercial for that Organic Oil and decided to drink an entire bottle, can an ambulance come right away?’ I start pretty much every night having to give people my age milk in a sippy cup and assure them that other than an upset stomach and massive diarrhea, they’ll live. So anyway, I deal with that nonsense enough at my night job. I’m not dealing with it _here_ , too.”

“So, what you’re sayin’,” Jesse drawls, his lopsided smile growing, “is that I should add a little Glenwales to my flask and then come get you when it gives me the runs?”

“Do you… are you carrying a flask, Jesse? Right now?”

“Absolutely not,” he answers without missing a beat-- it’s practically a reflexive response at this point. He plants his hands firmly on his hips, still smiling broadly. “Naw. Totally hypothetical.”

“If I can’t drink on the job, you don’t get to, either,” the old man says, actually, _literally_ wagging his finger. “And seriously, don’t go drinkin’ any oil. You can aspirate it pretty easily, and the last thing your poor, charred lungs need is pneumonia.”

“Hey, I’ll have you know I’ve cut back,” Jesse says, affronted. “One cigarillo a week. With some whiskey.”

“That so?”

“And just a few cigarettes here and there,” he adds under his breath.

“I still can’t believe Gabriel let you pick up such a filthy habit,” Jack mutters. “In this day and age--”

Jesse buzzes his lips and waves off Jack’s rant before it can begin in full. ”I had my first smoke at eleven, Jack. If anything, _I_ was the bad influence on him. ‘Sides, not like they’re as bad as they used to be.”

Jack scoffs but leaves it at that. He’s in a better mood than usual, and even a brief appearance by Gabriel to question him about a delivery of fresh fruit he’d been expecting doesn’t faze him much.

In fact, the day marks the first point Jesse feels like they’re all getting into the swing of things. Service is smoother, more predictable; he’s able to joke around with customers as he works up front, no longer too frazzled to do anything but focus on orders; they’re all a little less stressed, thank heavens.

And unsurprisingly, Dragon Tattoo is back at it again.

Jesse spies him sitting at the usual table, his leather shoulder bag sitting in the opposite chair, his claim staked for the day. The man pays no mind to the patrons that pour in by the dozens, milling past his table with drinks in hand, looking fruitlessly for a seat in the packed coffee shop.

He keeps an eye on Dragon Tattoo over the next hour or so. It’s not really like Jesse to be wound so tight, and a little bit of him resents that he seems to be the only one bothered by the fella spurning their goods, but not their limited seating or nano fiber internet. It’s not asking the world for a man who’s clearly made of money to throw a few credits their way now and then-- Vishkar tablets and clothes like that don’t come cheap.

Still. Jesse sighs and tips his head back, wishing he didn’t feel chafed to the bone with irritation. He resolves to let it go, to _will_ himself not to worry about it.

But it’s then that the final, infuriating straw comes, just visible from the corner of the baker’s eye: Dragon Tattoo pulling out a small bag from the McDonald’s around the corner, unwrapping a McMuffin, and taking a single bite as he taps away on his screen. 

He might as well have just spat on their floor. Jesse’d feel less insulted if that were the case, actually.

He’s cutting across the room before he’s had a moment to think better of it, to grab Jack or Gabriel, to take a smoke and regain his composure. His boots click hard and sharp against the floor as he weaves through tables and around a clump of college-aged kids playing a game on a holovid.

It’s the resounding clink of his spurs that make the most impact. Distinct, even under the chatter of other customers and the sounds of a bustling coffee shop.

Jesse stops hard, heels meeting the synthetic wood with a clip that demands notice. His hands go straight to his hips, and if he’d had a cigarette, he’d be chomping down hard, probably gnashing the thing to bits in his agitation.

Dragon Tattoo is in some sumptuous fabric today, loose and draping, the silky sheen of it catching the light like foam on water. He glances up at Jesse with an impassive languor, fingertips still trailing over the hard-light screen of his tablet; then his gaze drifts down, down, and settles on the toes of the baker’s tooled leather boots.

“Alright, fella. I’ve tried bein’ reasonable,” Jesse says low, his accent bleeding heavier into his voice, his frustration audible in the thicker drawl of his words, “but a damn _egg McMuffin_? _Really_? Here’s the thing of it, friend: you either need to order somethin’ from us-- _anythin_ ’-- or you need to go loiter elsewhere.”  
  
“A glass of water--”  
  
“Nuh-uh, ain’t gonna cut it, pal,” Jesse snaps, temper flaring at the audacity with which this man tries to weave around giving them a cent, though he can damn well afford it. He inhales sharp through his nose. “You been here _four days_ and not ordered once. Common courtesy would be to throw us a bone.”  
  
He expects this fine, well-pressed man to get up and leave for a high class coffee bar or a fancy lounge more suited to his tastes-- or fucking _McDonald’s_ , since it boasts better food than he and Gabriel make, apparently-- but not before asking to speak to a manager, and oh, Jesse is _ready_.

Jack will probably back him up, Jesse knows, but it’s _Gabriel_ he’ll go get. Gabriel, who considers fast food a cardinal sin; Gabriel, whose greatest pride is his work; Gabriel, who personally banned Dr. Ziegler from the cafe for a week after she brought in a competitor’s cupcakes for Genji’s birthday.

What he doesn’t expect is for Dragon Tattoo to calmly clasp his hands on the table and regard him appraisingly.

“Very well. What do you recommend?”  
  
“Uh… uh, well,” Jesse stumbles to say, a hand going to his nape, fingers grasping through his messy hair. “Anything on the menu, really. Can’t go wrong with the bear claws. Made ‘em myself just a couple hours ago.”  
  
“I’ll have one of those, then. And a glass of water, please.”  
  
“Yeah, you betcha.” Jesse shoots a couple of fingerguns Dragon Tattoo’s way as he slowly ambles backward, a nervous chuckle escaping through clenched teeth.

The man merely props his elbows on the tabletop and rests his chin upon folded hands, curiously watching him go.

Jesse feels the first prickles of a nervous sweat along his lower back and groans under his breath. He didn’t account for the guy actually agreeing to order something, honestly.

He picks the biggest, prettiest bear claw sitting in the display case and plates it up. There’s an entirely different fire burning in him as he walks to the table a second time, bear claw and water in hand-- a kind that makes him red-faced on the approach, smoldering with something neighboring on embarrassment. 

“Here you go. It’s nine-fifty.”

He’s suddenly, acutely worried that he’s fallen for some sort of ploy-- that Dragon Tattoo will just dump the pastry on the floor, or refuse to eat it entirely. He waits, cringe-ready, for the reveal. He nibbles the inside of his lip while he waits for some criticism, given that the man initially refused to even sample their work.

But Dragon Tattoo offers up his phone and a quick scan transfers the credits, no problem. He thanks Jesse and is already tentatively tearing a piece from the bear claw when the baker takes his leave for the second time.

* * *

 

“You know, my brother said your bear claw was very good, Jesse.”

Genji is in early. Suspiciously early, as the man is not often given to rising before ten or eleven. He’s dressed in a midriff-baring croptop and a metal-studded jacket-- not really what Jack would consider work-appropriate, but any attempt to curtail Genji’s style has never gained much traction. He putters around the counter, lingering just offside while Jesse cleans up after a minor spill.

“Your brother, huh?” the baker asks, shaggy brows raising. _Hanzo_. The brother he’s heard about for years: the sharp-minded businessman, the dutiful son, the reason Genji’s bones had to be reformed with metal and biotic injections. “He visitin’ you?”

“Uh, yes,” Genji says as if it’s the most obvious thing in the world, head tilting forward. “Considering he is _here_.”

“Here? Like, _here_ here?” The crowd has thinned since lunch, and most of the tables sit vacant. There are just a pair of omnics sipping oil, a few students tapping away at tablets and holovids, Dragon Tattoo in the corner, and a few off-duty nurses.

 Rather than answer, Genji leans further over the counter, his elbows braced on its surface and his hands steepled together. “Jesse McCree. You still don’t even read my blog, do you? Not even when I tag you? I am… _devastated_ \--”

“Genji, you know I am not good about keeping up with everyone on every goddamn platform out there,” Jesse says, a fingertip jabbing the counter. “You _know_ this. I am who I am--”

“And you have no one but yourself to blame,” Genji sighs, all drama as his eyes flutter shut. “Look around, McCree. Who here might be my brother? I will give you one hint,” he adds, suddenly fighting to keep a straight face. He is all stifled laughter, cheeks rounded as he struggles to hold it together long enough to say, “You stomped up and threatened to _kick him out_ if he did not buy a thing--”

“No,” Jesse groans as Genji dissolves into a fit of wheezing laughter. “Hold up. No. Dragon Tattoo is your brother?”  
  
“Well, I just call him Hanzo,” Genji shrugs, “but that is an accurate descriptor.”

Jesse isn’t sure what he was expecting of someone whom Genji had frequently described as sporting ‘a stick up his butt’. It makes sense that Hanzo is more refined, more mature, yet Jesse realizes he’d still expected someone that shared more of Genji’s eccentric aesthetic—dyed neon hair and painted nails, light-up sneakers, flashy clothes and wild eyeliner.

But Hanzo looks like he could star in a commercial where he sits and drinks cognac in a designer suit. He looks like he could do more pullups in a five minutes than Jesse has ever managed in his life and still look camera-ready afterward. He’s got that dignified touch of grey at his temples, cheekbones so sharp they could cut a man to the quick, and an intricate tattoo straight out of a yakuza thriller.

“He is living here in L.A. now that he has also been disowned,” Genji continues as he ducks around behind the counter and makes a beeline for the display case. “I thought he was spending too much time alone in his apartment, so I told him he could hang out here instead. I knew he’d like the view of the park, all the plants.  I thought it would be nice for him to get out and meet new people, since he was kicked out of our childhood home and is starting over, as I had to.”

Genji simply drops that guilt-bomb in Jesse’s lap and then proceeds to eat a pecan praline cupcake whole, his scarred, metal-studded fingers packing cake and frosting into his open mouth; he then tips his head back while he chews, hands held over the bottom half of his face to keep crumbs from spewing out.

“Shit. Shit, Genji,” Jesse says, clipped in irritation, heavy in his own self-reprobation. He drags his palm down his face, rubbing the heel of his hand over his droopy eyes. “Genji. Genji, I _really_ wish you’d’a told me he was kin to you at some point. I was a total sleaze because I thought he was just some rich asshole being stingy as fuck.”

 Genji tips his head further back as he swallows, like some kind of bird, and then turns back to his friend. He tilts his head and makes a sympathetic noise, soft and cooing. “Well,” he states with artificial sweetness, “if you read my blog like I asked you to, you would have already known all of this.”

“You couldn’t have mentioned it in person? For ten seconds? ‘By the by, my brother is in town and in fact he’s sitting in the corner, not twenty feet away’,” Jesse hisses, boths hands gripped tight around the counter. “Everyone else knew? That’s why no one else cared? And all of y’all let me be an ass!”

“No, no, no. Well, yes. But it’s fine,” Genji assures him with gentle pats along his shoulders. “Your criticism was not misplaced! I told him on the first day, ‘Hanzo, you ought to order something, just to be polite’ and even offered him some suggestions, and he said something about that I am afraid to repeat while Gabriel is on the premises. But if he had listened to me to begin with, none of this would have happened. Don't worry-- I made sure to tell him that.”

Jesse just groans and slumps forward over the counter.

“But,” Genji says, turning in place before he leaves, “maybe it is good that it happened. It turns out Hanzo likes your bear claws.”

Jesse chews that over as he watches the brothers start chatting. Hanzo’s nothing like he expected, and not just in that he and Genji look like sorts that would never cross paths. Maybe he’s straightlaced and proud, and a bit uptight, but not so much that Jesse feels like there’s no chance to be decently friendly.

Genji gives him a cheery wave as he passes by on his way to the employees-only area of the shop, probably to pester Winston or dick around on his phone until his shift begins.

And then Jesse McCree feels like he and Hanzo are alone together under the wide slats of late-morning light, despite the seating area still harboring a few other patrons sipping away at espressos and iced coffees.

As his break rolls around, Jesse fixes a drink with a careful, steady hand. He pours thick, steamed milk into the cup by drips and dollops, swirling and cutting through to create a design atop the warm, caramel-brown of the latte underneath. It’s one that Jack taught him to do, originally made at Genji’s request-- a serpentine dragon, its pale scales fish-like, wisps of foamed milk curling from its snout.

It’s not as clean or detailed as Jack can do, but it ain’t half bad, either. He snaps a shot to show Jack later and then heads out onto the floor, both hands cradling the cup and saucer he carries.

“Hey.”

“Hello.” Hanzo’s mouth draws down into a small, wary frown at the sight of him. His gaze rises up and he meets Jesse’s nervous stare with an unflinching one of his own. “I have already purchased something today. Ask your coworker with the glasses.”

“Yeah, about that,” Jesse says, a grimace pulling at his whisker-framed lips. “I didn’t know you were here on account of Genji. Didn’t even know you were his brother,” he adds, sparing a brief, annoyed look back at the hall he’d last seen Genji slink down.

“Really?” Hanzo questions without looking at him. He smooths out a crease in the long, draped sleeve of the mossy green top he’s wearing. “I was under the impression he had broadcast every detail of my recent circumstances to the better part of southern California.”

“Well, he probably did,” Jesse says, sucking in a breath through his teeth. Strange that he feels so sympathetic to a man he’d never much cared about when he heard of him secondhand. “Anyway, I didn’t mean to come on so strong or make you feel unwelcome. Just let my pride get the better of me. I wouldn’t normally mind, but it’s just-- me and Gabe work real hard and don’t cut corners, and he tries to include somethin’ for everybody--”

“I understand,” Hanzo says, a slender-wristed hand lifted to halt the tumble of words from the baker’s lips. “I apologize for offering insult. I wrongly assumed that nothing here would be to my tastes. In my defense, everything that _my brother_ offered me sounded incredibly unappetizing.”

“Oh, yeah. Genji does his own secret menu thing which usually involves adding sugar and syrup to things that normally don’t have those. Some of it ain’t half bad, though,” he adds, making Hanzo’s lip curl in faint disgust. “But anyway, I made you this.”

He sets down the wide-mouthed cup and saucer with a gentle clink, careful of the man’s fingers which rest half-curled on the tabletop. He can’t help but note how neat and clean Hanzo’s nails are and wonders if maybe he uses some kind of clear polish, or if they just glint like glass on their own; they’re a stark contrast to his own raggedy fingertips, nails gnawed down out of nervous habit. He folds his arm behind his back, gesturing with his prosthetic hand instead.

Hanzo withdraws his hands into his lap and settles forward in his chair to peer into the offered drink.

It’s nowhere near as good as what Jack can make-- tiny, imaginative designs, the sort of stuff that earned him a series of wins at barista competitions back in the day-- but Jesse hopes it will do the trick.

“It’s a chai latte. On me, as an apology for strong-armin’ you into buyin’ a bear claw. Had to guess at what you’d like, but if you’d rather somethin’ else I can fix it up quick,” he offers.

“It is… a dragon,” Hanzo observes, taking the loop of the handle delicately between his thumb and index and slowly rotating the latte.

“Yup,” Jesse agrees, shifting in place. He is suddenly aware that his back’s become sweat-slick, his hair damp against his scalp. “Genji’s usual request. He said dragons are kind of a Shimada thing, so I thought-- uh, well, I figured maybe you’d like it, too. Or it’d remind you of home or somethin’. Oh, unless you _don’t_ wanna be reminded of it, in which case, well, fuck me--”

“I cannot help but be reminded of home,” Hanzo interrupts, voice smooth but emotionally flat. “Thank you, McCree.”

“Hey!” He’s a little too loud in his surprise-- Hanzo’s oak-brown eyes are fixed on him, sharp and intense as a wolf’s, rapt as he waits on Jesse to elaborate. “You know my name,” Jesse finishes lamely, _obviously_ , smiling big to cover his embarrassment.

“As you know mine already, I’m sure, though we have not been introduced,” Hanzo replies as he eases back in his chair, chai latte in hand, gaze occasionally dipping back down to appreciate the foamed milk art. 

His legs are crossed, and Jesse’s eye wanders idly down the matte black fabric of his pants to the man’s ankles. They’re surprisingly delicate, hugged tight by silky socks under his polished dress shoes.

Hanzo lifts the latte to his lips and takes a sip, his warm eyes once again finding Jesse’s over the rim of the cup. A sliver of pink tongue sweeps against his upper lip and removes the clinging trace of frothy milk, and there is a decidedly Genji-like curve to his mouth as he adds, “I expect my brother has told you all about me. He has certainly told me a great deal about _you_.”


	2. Chapter 2

“Genji. How long we been friends?”

A table spread with sour straws and empty chip bags lies between them, and Genji is still at work on a tall stack of nachos loaded with pickled jalapenos. The arcade’s small food court is borderline empty, most of the kids having headed home by now, allowing them to spread out and prop up their feet while they play a few games of Hearthstone.

Jesse scratches his chin with one hand and lets the other hover just shy of the scuffed tablet screen. He’s gone and gotten awful rusty over the last few years, while Genji has apparently been relentlessly honing his skills against high schoolers.

“ _So_ long!” Genji chirps as he demolishes Jesse in one sound turn. He grins broadly, showing off silver and green studded teeth, and plucks another chip from their shared tray. “Hey, this reminds me—will you come to my tournament next Saturday? I already asked Jack for the day off. He said, ‘If you think a game is more important than your job, go for it’ and then complained about arcades being a fad that will die off again soon. Angela’s going to come if she finishes her rounds in time.”

“What about your brother?”

Genji laughs, head thrown back and scarred, discolored throat exposed. “Hanzo? In a room packed with people? Willingly? No way. I went to arcades to get _away_ from him.”

“Oh, phew,” Jesse sighs, a hand pressed to his chest in relief. With that concern laid to rest, he clucks his tongue and starts in on the other one that’s been burning in the back of his mind all week long. “Hey, so…. what exactly have you told him about me over the years?”  
  
“What do you mean?” Genji asks as he finishes off Jesse in one final, crushing move, not even needing to glance down at the screen.  
  
“I mean that he said that you’ve told him a great deal about me,” Jesse says, mimicking Hanzo’s coy tone.

He’d tried brushing it off at the time, playing it cool; he’d tried to put it out of his mind every day thereafter, when he made time to visit Hanzo’s table and introduce him to something new-- Gabriel’s tres leche cupcake, Ana’s rosewater cookie, his own donut-bourbon bread pudding.

He’d only been trying to recover from a rough first impression, at first; trying to soothe his own shame over being a right jerk to Genji’s much-loved-if-difficult brother. He can’t deny that at some point it became more about Hanzo’s reactions-- snapped pictures, offered compliments, fork or fingers carefully licked clean-- which are far more positive than he would’ve expected.

Jesse powers down the tablet and sets it aside. He then starts in on what remains of the nachos with gusto, chomping openmouthed. “It’s been bothering me, you know. So, I wanna know what you been tellin’ him all these years.”

An understatement: it’s been gnawing at him, bubbling like yeast left to bloom. He’s yet to suss out what exactly it is Hanzo knows that makes him _look_ like that, _quirk the corner of his mouth_ like that. It’s something like secret amusement, playing out behind oak brown eyes that can pin him to the spot as sure as an arrow. It’s piercing enough to send Jesse’s smooth drawl stumbling and make him hot under the collar. 

“Oh. Everything, I guess. He is my brother, after all,” Genji explains as Jesse pulls his hat down to cover his face and groans lowly into it. “What? _What_? Was I supposed to _not_ tell him that I work with an American that dresses and sounds like a real cowboy? I think that may have been the very first thing I said to him after I got the job, actually.”  
  
“That it?” Jesse asks, already bracing himself for the rest. He lifts his hat and peers out from under it, shooting Genji a look of quiet pleading.  
  
“No, no, like I said, McCree. I told him everything.”

“Everything?” He blanks for a moment, gaze sliding to one side as he dredges up memories long buried under the silt of years past. It occurs to Jesse that Genji knows far too much about him and likely has a meticulously tagged record of his poor decision-making preserved on his blog.

“ _Everything_ ,” Genji repeats, hands folded in his lap as he nods, bright even in the face of his friend’s growing horror. At Jesse’s distressed groaning, he adds, “Including the time you punched out that guy who tried to rob us! And you coming to the pediatric ward with me to read to the kids, and how you won me the giant bear at the carnival with your sharp shooting, and the charity bakes, and how much money you used to make stripping, and that time you carried me across town when my leg conked out.”

“Oh,” Jesse says. His distress abates, the clammy sweat that had been working under his skin suddenly retreating. He can’t help but sound a little satisfied as he asks, “Told him all that, did you?”

“That is what I just said, Jesse,” Genji says. “I told him pretty much everything-- not just the times your chaps split or you gave yourself second degree burns. The good, cool stuff, too!”

“Right, right. So…” The baker fiddles with the glass of beer, a titanium finger drawing squiggles in the condensation.  “What’s he think of me?”

Genji shrugs off the question at first, more interested in eating. But as he chews, he stills, growing more thoughtful as he munches away. “He never showed much interest in you when we texted or comm’d. He has never brought you up to me, really... But he isn’t upset at you or anything, if that is why you’re worried--”

“Oh, no, that ain’t it--”  
  
“Why do you care what my brother thinks, anyway? He can be so uptight. If he does give you any harsh words, just tell me and I will set him straight.”  
  
“Nah, he’s been fine to me. Just curious what he thinks, is all.” Jesse stares down at his uneven thumbnail, dragging its edge over the pad of his index. Another tortilla chip only partly distracts him from the urge to nibble and gnaw til it’s down to the bed. “He’s an intriguing fella, y’know?”

“He isn’t _that_ interesting,” Genji says with a note of dismissal. He’s uncharacteristically glum as he straightens up their table-- sweeping away crumbs, neatly stacking their empty plates, and piling their used napkins into the empty nacho tray. “Almost ten years we have been friends,” he announces so abruptly that Jesse’s brows raise.

"Yeah, sounds about right,” he agrees, a smile tugging along one corner of his mouth. Roughly a decade since Jack presented them with a new coworker around Jesse’s age-- an ex-patient of Angela’s, still looking down the road at a lot of rehabilitation. He’d been scarred and sporting faded green hair with dark, grown out roots at the time; timid for all of five minutes, before Jesse walked him to the kitchen to show off towering cakes and cooling racks filled with cookies that made the younger man gush in his excitement.

“Though you _did_ abandon me for half of that time period,” Genji adds in a low whisper, brown eyes doleful even as his half-synthesized voice gradually sharpens. “And now you seek to replace me with my brother--”

“What in blazes are you talkin’ about? _Replace_ you? Ain’t no one like you, Genji. Hell, Hanzo’s the closest person to you on earth, genetically speakin’, and you’re still worlds apart.”

“But perhaps if I were more like Hanzo,” Genji says, his focus suddenly on sifting through his Hearthstone deck, belying the wounded frustration just creeping into his words, “you would have felt some inclination to keep contact with me. If I _intrigued_ you, instead of… what? _Boring_ you? I will endeavor to be a more like my brother from here on out.”

Genji lets that sit without adding another word; lets Jesse cross and uncross his legs under the table, sigh heavily, and lace his robotic fingers through his human ones over his soft middle. He doesn’t glance up even when the older man finally begins to speak.

“Genji, no, please,” Jesse says, a drawn sigh on its heels. “Don’t… you know your brother’s got nothin’ to do with my leavin’, and you didn’t either. It’s on me. I… I did what I do best and skipped town, only without actually skippin’ town this time around. Now, it _is_ a little trickier to cut all ties to your previous life without changing your zip code, but I did manage pretty well,” he says, only half-joking.

That wins him a subdued chuckle from Genji, who is at least willing to look at him again. He’s still a little wet-eyed, expression pinched with traces of misery, but they’re fading by the second.

“It wouldn’t have mattered, Genji, how you were or who you were. I mean, Gabriel and Jack were like my-- well, I didn’t even talk to them, either-- not a word. And I did keep up with your blog for the first couple years, just so you know. But then I fell off the wagon--”

“You always do,” Genji sighs, warm again, sympathetic, quick to grab Jesse’s hand. His grip is fierce in a way that would’ve been unmanageable before, or would have at least given him considerable pain in reconstructed joints. “I apologize, Jesse. I realize things were hard for you. Things are hard for my brother right now, and… and me as well. I am still sorting out some of my own feelings.”

“Well, you can certainly share ‘em, if you want. Didn’t realize you had a sore spot with your brother still. You mad at him?”

“No,” Genji says, recoiling slightly, his hand slipping out of Jesse’s. His lips press tight, troubled. “No. I am… devastated for him. As difficult as it was for me to be cast aside by our family, it must be a hundred times worse for Hanzo. He always met their expectations. He always had their praise. Yet in the end, he has nothing more than I, the family failure, wound up with. At least I am familiar with being a disappointment,” Genji finishes, the lilt of his voice suggesting it as a plus, some benefit of his childhood pariahdom. “Hanzo has never known the feeling.”

“Jealous of him?” Jesse questions, eyeing Genji with concern.

“Of Hanzo? I don’t know. At this moment, I don’t know what to feel for him,” the green-haired man admits, shoulders shaking with a suppressed laugh, his tone miserable. “Worry, sympathy, sorrow, outrage on his behalf? Petty vindication that I am not the sole disappointment to the Shimada clan? _Jealous_? Perhaps that, too. Ah. I am a terrible person, Jesse McCree. A terrible brother.”

Genji lays his head facedown on the tabletop, narrow shoulders heaving with a sigh. “I’m sorry, McCree. You are not my therapist.”

“Good, or else you’d probably be trying to date me, given your track record,” Jesse teases over a crescendoing, high-pitched whine from the other man. “You ain’t terrible, Genji. You’re like the furthest thing from terrible. Your opinions on french fries are, frankly, disgusting and indefensible, but other than that, you’re an upstanding guy.”

“The crinkly kind are gross--”

“Those are the best damn ones,” Jesse counters, letting his hands thump the table in exasperation. “You and Gabe both-- you both fuckin’ kill me sometimes.”

Genji chuckles and turns his head to one side, his cheek flush against the gleaming tabletop. His good humor isn’t long-lived. “I think I did not realize how second-rate I felt in Hanamura until a piece of Hanamura found me here.”

He doesn’t offer anything more, instead opting to trail his green-painted nails over the tabletop in lazy shapes.

Jesse takes a long draught from his cheap beer, humming in thought once he gulps it down. “So, it’s weird havin’ him back, huh?”

“ _So_ weird,” Genji agrees without pause, sitting up and shaking his head. He’s coiled tense and tight, as if trying not to burst at the chance to vent. “I just… I want to help him feel welcome here, as I felt welcomed. And I like having him around! I missed him so much more than I realized. But there is a part of me that still struggles to fit him into my life here. Meeting my girlfriend. At my work. With _my_ friends.”

“Hey. Relax. You know you’re Shimada Prime around these parts.” The toe of his boot finds Genji’s crossed legs under the table, and he nudges into his knee until the other man reluctantly grins.

“I know,” Genji says, laughing softly. “I just… it took leaving the country to escape my brother’s shadow the first time,” he complains with a gentle expression of embarrassment. “I would rather not find myself once again the one to… to be regarded as less--”

“You’re always gonna be my best friend,” Jesse reminds him. “No one else has half as much dirt on me as you do, right? Although… I guess Hanzo does, if you’ve told him everything.”

“Okay, okay. Listen. Maybe I have not told him _everything_ ,” Genji says with a scrunched face. His smile grows as he returns to good spirits. “There are some things I never even tweeted about. Like, ah… oh! I upheld the code of Las Vegas when we went.”

“Oh, shit,” Jesse mutters, choking wetly on a poorly timed gulp of beer. “Forgot about that trip...”

Genji smirks as he gently pries the glass from Jesse’s hand and takes a drink. A foamy mustache clings to his upper lip afterward, and he does nothing about it. “Well, I remember _every_ thing.”

“And you’re not gonna ever tell anyone? Anyone ever?”

“No, McCree. Because that’s friendship,” he says as he squeezes Jesse’s hand, expression perfectly benevolent. “Having the knowledge and the power to utterly destroy someone but never doing it.”

“Well, thanks,” the baker says, the sounds of the nearby Pachimari skill crane and Fighters of the Storm console filling the considerable silence that follows. “Likewise, I’ll never tell anyone about how you’ve never actually finished a Pokemon ga--”

“Shhh,” Genji hisses in a low panic, whapping Jesse’s forearm repeatedly. “Not _here_!”

“Sorry, sorry, sorry,” Jesse almost laughs, grinning wider than he has in ages as the younger man worriedly glances around them for teenaged eavesdroppers. “Anyway, yeah. I’ll come cheer you on. Are the prizes the same? Win me one of those stuffed guys again, will you? I could really use a pillow,” he mumbles, a hand going to knead at his sore neck.

“I can get you like, three or four, right now, from that machine,” Genji boasts, nodding his head toward the skill crane filled with Pachimari plushes. “I used to bring home a dozen every week and Angela would give them to kids at the hospital. So… you’ll have to keep a lookout for management while I play, because _technically_ I am banned from all the claw machines here. And every other arcade.”

“I’ve got your back, buddy.”

* * *

 

Business continues smoothly, as far as Jesse can tell. The books and hard numbers are left to Winston, Jack, and Gabriel, but based on the sheer number of cookies and muffins they have to whip up in a day, times seem good.

They’ve even got _regulars_ now, plural-- not just Hanzo. Mostly twenty-somethings and high school-aged kids, who gravitate to the shop for its nano fiber internet and guzzle iced mochas and devour entire batches of brownies like locusts. Then there’s the hot mess that stops in every few days to ask if they serve boba tea yet (they don’t) and then lingers to chat at Jack like he knows him; and his intimidatingly large buddy, who only ever orders chamomile tea with lemon.

Jesse takes care to work certain affairs into the daily routine. He keeps on treating Hanzo, for instance-- bringing him pastries and off-menu drinks specially made to appeal to the taciturn fixture in Athena’s back corner.

And Hanzo keeps letting him, offering polite protests even as he accepts an espresso or a slice of carrot cake and seems quite content to finish the whole thing.

The first time Jesse asks to sit with the man-- two plates of chicken-adobo pies in hand and two bottled drinks tucked in the crook of his arm-- Hanzo stiffens like he’s been propositioned. His recovery is graceful, though, and he removes his leather bag from the other chair and offers up the seat.

There’s not much conversation while they eat. Hanzo’s gaze is usually directed out the window, toward the greenery and stonework of the park across the street; Jesse people-watches for the most part, studying passersby and the nearby storefronts, his attention flitting back to Hanzo more often than is probably polite.

Over the years, Genji had painted a rather different picture of his brother through the stories he chose to tell: the classroom prodigy, lauded in school and at home; the skilled archer, a champion in youth contests, the pride of Hanamura; the golden child that never even flirted with idea of defying expectation; the brother who nearly cost Genji his life, if only by a lone act of youthful rebellion.

Looking at him now, Jesse can imagine why Hanzo made such a capable executive for the Shimada business. _He_ certainly wouldn’t want to be sitting across from Genji’s brother in any business context-- Hanzo possesses a quiet and calculated intensity, his sharp eyes betraying a sharp mind. _Intimidating_ , and that’s without the weight that a name like Shimada no doubt carries back in Japan. Doesn’t help that he’s some kind of beautiful, too.

Jesse’s pretty damn sure that one cutting look from Hanzo would just about be enough to turn his insides to jelly; a cruel word from him could probably pierce his heart outright. He wonders if Shimada Corp’s competitors are grateful for Hanzo’s departure. He’d bet credits on it.

“Thank you for the meal. It was delicious, as usual,” Hanzo says as he finishes and lays his silverware sideways on his plate. The praise comes with a hint of grudging hesitance, as if he’s still expecting to be disappointed by one of Jesse’s offerings and is both pleased and put out when it continuously fails to happen. “Is it yours?”

“Nah, this is Gabe’s,” Jesse says around his last bite-- a chunk of flaky crust that leaves traces of salt and hot sauce on his fingers. “Old family recipe, jealously guarded, Reyeses only, etcetera. Oh, I technically _could_ whip ‘em up, since he let me in on the secret anyway,” the baker says as he collects the crumbs along the edge of his fork; if not for Hanzo, he’d have used his hands for this, too. “But Gabe loves makin’ these, and I don’t wanna take that away from him. So I just stick to eatin’ ‘em.”

“I can see why his work is so highly sought after. You were very fortunate to acquire an apprenticeship with him.”

Jesse laughs, mostly through his nose, barely holding in a snort. “Considering I just sort of fell into it… kinda funny now, knowing there are folks far better qualified than me who’d give their right arm to work under Gabriel Reyes. Instead he picked up some brat that didn’t know baking soda from baking powder.”

“He must have seen potential in you, even then. Promise, of some variety.”

Jesse makes a thoughtful noise and recalls his first day in the kitchen with Gabriel-- making more havoc than help, spilling a twenty-pound bag of flour, ultimately spending the afternoon sitting out of the way and eating through flopped bread loaves while Gabriel swept up his mess. “Pretty sure I ought to be grateful for Gabriel’s bleedin’ heart more than anything else. God only knows where I’d be if he hadn’t taken a chance on me. He can be frustratin’ as hell but... you know.”

“I do.” Hanzo’s words come clipped and closed off, as strung with tension as his broad shoulders and curled fingers. His eyes stay fixed on the window, on some point a dozen yards away, even when Jesse takes his leave and bids him a good afternoon.

When the baker approaches the next morning, Hanzo is sitting with his shoulder leaned against the window, arms crossed, neither his phone nor his tablet in sight.

The elder Shimada only reacts to the gentle clink of dishes on the tabletop.

“This is too much,” he murmurs, pushing aside a plate overfilled with two fat cinnamon rolls dripping in icing. His fingers drift toward the mug set closest to him, though-- dancing just shy of the white ceramic, the steam that wisps upward from a foamy cap sprinkled with cinnamon.  “Do you intend to keep doing this forever?”

“You could always come order at the counter like a normal customer,” Jesse says as he settles into the seat opposite Hanzo. He takes one of the rolls for himself-- almost too big for one hand, sticky sweet and still warm from the oven-- and bites in so deep that icing winds up on the tip of his nose.

Hanzo grunts softly in reply. It comes across reluctant and negative.

“But I don’t mind curatin’ your menu for you,” Jesse continues around a mouthful of squishy cinnamon dough.

“You’re giving me a sweet tooth,” Hanzo complains, his fingers going to his faintly lined brow, his palm shielding him from meeting the baker’s widening smirk. His other hand blindly trails over the tabletop until he finds the plate and pulls it close.

Jesse laughs through his nose, mouth still stuffed with cinnamon roll, and can’t avoid an egregious snort. “Can’t think of higher praise. Hey, what’s your favorite thing so far? I wanna know what you like.”

“The one from two days ago, with the pecans.” He works on the oversized bun one small bite at a time, futile in his attempt to keep its stickiness and crumbs contained.

“Oh.” Jesse straightens up as he finishes licking his fingers clean of sugar and icing, a broadening grin in place. “The pecan praline cookie! That’s one of mine. One of the first ones Gabe let me put on the menu.”

“You have some skill at what you do,” Hanzo says curtly. 

“What do _you_ do?”

“Excuse me?”

“What is it that you do?” Jesse tries again. “Genji told us you pretty much ran your family’s company, but not much else. What’d you do, exactly? And what’re you up to nowadays?”

A sudden chorus of Six-Gun Killer chimes from his apron pocket have Jesse hurriedly apologizing before Hanzo can answer. He fishes out his phone and scrolls through the half-dozen texts lighting up the screen.

_Hey hotshot, I know you’re on ur 3rd break today but I actually need u in the kitchen_

_We’re running behind now…..._

_And Jacks asking me if I need extra hands-- which I SHOULDN’T_

_Get in here before he comes back and tries to help_

_The man uses half a piping bag per cupcake, a fucking travesty_

 

“If you’ll excuse me,” Jesse says to Hanzo as he stands from his chair. “Duty calls.”

“Of course,” Hanzo says. “My thanks. I appreciate your... efforts,” he adds without looking at the baker, his fingers idling around the rim of his coffee cup.

“You’re more than welcome,” Jesse says, a bright smile to match his tone. “Want a bite for lunch in a little while? We’ve got a panini press for some goddamn reason. Might as well use it.”

“I would like that,” Hanzo says after a moment, his shoulders slumping slightly.

“Any preferences?” They have a well-stocked kitchen, but Jesse is fully prepared to run to the market if necessary for a specific request.

Hanzo rests his cheek on a half-curled fist and makes a nearly inaudible noise of consideration. “Keep surprising me.”

Jesse’s still grinning dazedly when he wanders through the kitchen doors and back to an annoyed Gabriel’s side.

Hanzo’s soft request and the promise of another meal with him-- in just a couple of hours, even-- keeps the baker buoyed through the rest of his shift. He’s all smiles as he and Gabe replenish the bakery shelves, and remains so when he’s eventually pulled out front to help make drinks and fill orders.

His good cheer only heightens when he glances up at the sound of boots clicking evenly across the floor and finds himself face to face with a familiar pair standing arm-in-arm.

“Angela! Fareeha! Oh, I’ve missed you both so much!” Lena shrieks from beside him. She nearly bounds over the counter in her excitement, but thinks better of it; she circles around instead, her hideous rubber shoes squeaking as she rounds the corner and tugs them both into a hug that’s as much squeezing and shaking as anything else.

Jesse waits for the moment to pass before pointedly tipping his hat at the two of them, earning a laugh from Angela and an eyeroll from Fareeha.

While the good doctor catches up with Lena and greets a newly arrived Jack, Fareeha marches to the pastry display with her hands stuffed in the deep pockets of a worn leather bomber jacket that should be melting her in this heat—but, just like her mother, she manages an almost effortless cool when it shouldn’t be possible.

She leans on the glass and smiles over the counter at Jesse. “Long time no see, cowboy.”

“Yeah,” he drawls, sighing as they settle into a comfortable silence while watching Angela divide her attention between Lena and Jack, handily participating in two separate conversations at once.  “You want some carrot cake?”

“Maybe. Did you _do_ something to it?” the woman asks, sending him a dry, questioning look that is more like her mother than she’d ever willingly acknowledge.

“What on earth are you talkin’ about?” Jesse grins as he plates her up a generous slab of cream-cheese topped cake. He makes a show of keeping it within her line of sight at all times.

“Oh, I don’t know,” Fareeha says as she flips up her dark aviator shades and lets them rest atop her head. Her eyes are lined with dark khol, with an elegant tattoo inked into her cheek, just like Ana’s. “Maybe mayonnaise in the icing? Or adding so much salt my mouth will be like the Sahara after one bite? _Spitting on it_?”

“Hey, I _never_ spit on your stuff,” he protests, wagging a finger at her.

“You did and I know it,” she mutters as she picks up the cake with her bare hands and takes an enormous bite.

“Whoa, there,” Jesse chuckles as she chomps through the carrot cake, heedless of the frosting mustache she’s accumulating at a rapid pace. “Watch your fingers.”

“So hungry,” Fareeha manages between chews, her dark lashes fluttering at the sweet bliss of sugar and spice. “I keep forgetting to buy groceries and all Angela ever has in the apartment is kale and hemp seeds. My only choices have been green smoothies or whatever the hell Genji makes in the air fryer with mini-marshmallows.”

“I can’t believe you’re in a relationship with three other people and not _one_ of you can cook worth a damn,” he interjects, mystified. Zenyatta got a pass on that, obviously, though Jesse was starting to suspect the omnic might actually have the most kitchen capability out of the whole group. “Do you want some food to-go? Promise I won’t put any beard trimmings in with it,” he says, lifting his hand like it’s an oath.

“You’re so gross,” she almost snorts. Her dark eyes are suddenly alight as she asks, “Did Gabriel make any pie? Lemon cakes? Cheese buns? Is he around?”

“He’s busy slavin’ away over a hot oven,” Jesse sighs as he prepares a bag for Fareeha, generously stuffing it with all her favorites. “Which he will certainly remind us all of at least two more times today... I’ve got you covered, though. So, how’s the military life treatin’ you?”

“It isn’t,” she says as she snatches up the bag eagerly and opens the top to take a deep whiff. “I’m in private security now.”

“And I thought I was stressed when she was a soldier,” Angela mutters suddenly, appearing at her girlfriend’s side so swift and silent that Jesse nearly startles. “Anyway, it is good to see you, McCree. It’s been so long! We missed you. _Genji_ missed you, especially.”

“You can’t go doing that to him again,” Fareeha adds, voice gone stern, as if she’s talking to a perp rather than the man who is almost like a brother. “Or _us_. Oh, and just wait for my mother to get you by the ear--”

“No,” Jesse says softly, his metal hand instinctively covering his ear, the memories of a hundred pinched lobes flooding back.

“Fareeha, don’t frighten him off again,” Angela chides before turning and beckoning Jesse out from behind the counter. She embraces him in a long and seriously comforting hug, cooing something in Swiss against his temple all the while.

He melts a little in her arms, the way she sways and soothingly pats his back. He’d forgotten how good her bedside manner was.

“Missed you too, Doc,” he says as he gives her a gentle squeeze back. “And, uh, is this a good time to make an appointment?”

Angela’s laugh is a thing of pure good. “Oh, McCree. You and I both know you’ll never keep it,” she sighs. “Come by sometime and I will squeeze you in. Just ask Genji if it’s a good day to try. He knows my schedule quite well. Surgeries and whatnot. Ah, and let me give you some helpful recommendations in the meantime,” she says with a too gracious smile.

“N-nah, I can wait--”

“No smoking, less drinking, moderate exercise, six to eight hours of sleep each night, get your cold and flu shots, and take it easy on the sweets and carbohydrates,” she rattles off, sticking up a finger for each item. “That about covers it, yes?”

“Guess so,” he grumbles.

“I look forward to having you as a regular patient again, McCree,” the doctor adds with a satisfied smile. She rummages in her giant shoulder bag for a few moments and then hands him a neatly folded paper bag. “I don’t want to contradict the advice I have just given you, but… I brought you some contraband,” she whispers.

Jesse looks at the bag, which is labeled in four languages, including Cyrillic. “No, you didn’t,” he almost gasps as he peeks inside. There, in a careful wrapping of waxed paper, is a beautiful strudel that smells like heaven, if heaven was filled with apples and cinnamon. “This from Mei’s shop? Zaryanova must be the wife, then? What’s it like?”

“You’d get the boot, cowboy,” Fareeha says immediately, winking at him. She grins with delight at the prospect. “No small talk, no pleasantries, no chit chat. I liked it,” she adds with a one-shouldered shrug.

Angela looks from her girlfriend to Jesse with a too-wide smile that lacks all of her usual warmth and graciousness. “It’s very spartan. Very… regimented. And you get a surcharge for holding up the line, apparently,” she adds, miffed as Fareeha stifles a laugh behind her hand.

“You _did_ spend way too long deciding which flavor muffin you wanted,” the ex-soldier says in answer to the doctor’s scrunched frown. “Like two whole minutes.”

“And that justifies a public chastisement and an extra five credits?"

“Hey, doc,” says a voice just behind Jesse. It’s Gabriel, emerged from the kitchen with fresh bread and a lemon cake dusted in powdered sugar. He folds his arms atop the pastry counter and lifts his chin in Angela’s direction. “That’s what you get for going to the competition.

“G-Gabriel, no, no! I--”

“Fareeha,” Gabriel interrupts, winking at the beaming ex-soldier and sliding the lemon cake across the counter toward her. “And tell your mom I said hi.”

“He never makes those for me,” Jesse complains to Fareeha once Gabriel has retreated back into the kitchen.

“You went to Zaryanova’s with me!” Angela huffs in the loudest possible whisper, a smattering of frustrated Swiss-German following. She crosses her slender arms and leans in to stare at her girlfriend, who merely shrugs and continues to lick her fingers clean of sugar. “So why isn’t he mad at you, too? This always happens. It is entirely unfair of him.”

“One time she poured hot syrup all over his foot and he just smiled through it,” Jesse says, huffing with a laugh; Gabriel’s patience had a limit for everyone but Fareeha, it seemed. “Hey, so did you get to talk to Mei while y’all were there? God, I miss her.”

“Did you know she was the one that always did the little penguin drawings on the chalkboards? I thought it was Jack,” Lena suddenly chirps from his side. “I miss seeing ‘em. It just isn’t the same now, is it?”

“I did talk to her,” Angela says, still sour. “With her wife _glaring_ at me all the while. She mentioned that she would be by with popsicles one day soon.”

“Whoa,” Jesse says, sharing an excited glance with Lena. “Popsicles?”

“Now I want to go!” the petite brunette says with an emphatic bounce. “Mei always did make the best frozen drinks.”

“The apple pie milkshake she used to do?” Jesse feels a little weak in the knees just thinking about it, and Lena’s small swoon shows she feels the same. “If I ever wind up in the hospital, Angela, just feed me a steady diet of that--”

“Absolutely not,” the doctor laughs. “If you wind up in my hospital, McCree-- and I hope for your sake that you take your health seriously and avoid such an outcome-- you will receive only the most nutritious, healthful, restorative foods available. Which reminds me that I should share all of my bookmarked recipes with you...”

“Which reminds _me_ that we need to go shopping,” Fareeha says as she winds an arm around the blonde’s waist and begins to gently steer her toward the door.

“But I just went to the store a few days ago?” Angela says uncertainly. She sighs and glances backward to wave a goodbye. “We’ll be by later, probably once Genji’s on duty. He’s practicing for some tournament, I think. Won’t you come, McCree?”

“Count on it,” he assures them both before they leave-- Angela going out of her way to hug Lena and Winston and Jack, and Fareeha giving them all a salute before flipping her aviators back down and marching out with her girlfriend on one arm and her bag of pastries in the other.

The remainder of the morning breezes by. When Reinhardt and Genji arrive to man the counter, with Winston cheerily helping wherever he can, Jesse excuses himself to the kitchen to whip up something good.

Gabriel lets him take up a portion of counter space without any fuss, though Jesse can feel the older man’s curious gaze while he works.

“What are you trying to make?”

“Sandwiches,” Jesse mutters as he scans the loaded shelves of the commercial refrigerator. “I see brie, but I don’t want that. Somethin’ else. I know you’ve got good cheese in here _somewhere_ , Gabe.”

Gabriel huffs out a little laugh as he gently folds fresh whipped cream into chocolate. “Not for you to snack on.”

Jesse sighs dramatically, his shoulders lifting and falling with such a heave that his boss rolls his eyes. “Guess it can’t be helped,” he says. “Guess I’ll just have to use Jack’s stuff,” he announces to the pastry chef, flaunting a thick stack of bright orange-yellow cheese slices.

“That was in the fridge? I _told_ Jack not to put his shitty imitation food in my kitchen--”

Jesse makes a show of unpeeling one plastic-wrapped slice from the slab of individually wrapped cheese product. “Don’t you worry, Gabe. I’ll make sure no one sees my platter of Kraft cheese toasts leaving _your_ kitchen. Our little secret, yours and mine.”

He winks for good measure.

Gabriel sighs and sets down the steel bowl filled with chocolate mousse. “Fine,” he says sharply as he elbows past the younger man and digs deep in the refrigerator. “But don't use all of it. Cheese has a way of vanishing around here, and this shit isn’t cheap.”

Jesse whistles when his boss hands him fontina, gruyere, fresh mozzarella, and the good sliced turkey he keeps on hand for his own lunches. He snags a tomato, too, and then makes a beeline for the basil on the shelf with Gabriel’s little hydroponic herb garden. He cradles the bevy of ingredients in his metal arm and happily shuffles back to his little corner of the kitchen.

“Now throw that nasty shit away before Jack can squirrel it away somewhere else,” Gabriel says, gesturing to the stack of bright yellow cheese slices still in Jesse’s hand.

“What? No way, this is Jack’s comfort food,” Jesse says, immediately cradling the Kraft singles against his chest. “And mine, too. I might still want some cheese toast later--”

“Whatever,” Gabriel relents. “Keep it. But I’d better not find a stash of Wonderbread and Miracle Whip around here,” he mutters, a low rumble of complaints trailing after.

Jesse McCree hums brightly as he fixes up a few sandwiches and slices a couple of apples to go with them. He’s peeking in between the grilled slices of bread a few minutes later to check for adequately gooey cheese when Gabriel pipes up again.

“Don’t tell me that’s all for you,” he comments, eyeing the growing stack of grilled sandwiches. He pointedly meets Jesse’s gaze with a stare that is too knowing, too keen. “Feeding Oxton, too? Gonna need more than that.”

“Nah, it’s all just for me,” Jesse says as adds the last panini to the top of the stack and carefully piles apple slices along the edges of the plate. “Sorry Gabe. You know me,” he adds, patting his flannel-covered stomach.

“Mmmhmm,” the old pastry chef rumbles, crossing his arms and tilting his beanie-capped head as he watches his protege go. “You realize I can just stick my head out and see who you’re eating with, right?”

“Leave me be, Gabriel,” Jesse warns as he backs out through the door, plate and two drinks in hand. His face is red under his boss’s scrutiny, and the last thing he wants right now is Gabriel Reyes turning that stare on Hanzo. He leaves with one final admonition. “You and Jack can _both_ butt out for once.”

Jesse’s flustered as he arrives at Hanzo’s table and slides the heavy plate in front of the other man. He nearly misses a compliment-- Hanzo’s appreciation for a tomato-loaded sandwich with very little cheese-- because he’s more focused on watching Jack and Gabriel fraternizing behind the counter.

“A problem, McCree?” Hanzo asks, apparently noticing Jesse’s distraction. His fingers make delicate work of tearing apart bite-sized pieces of his sandwich; his method differs drastically from Jesse’s tendency to devour his food in as few bites as possible, stuffing his mouth so full it’s hard to chew.

“They’re supposed to be at each other’s throats,” he almost grumbles, tipping his head in the direction of the two men lingering by the espresso machine, both of them looking stiff but far from combative. “What’s gotten into them?”

“My brother says they have been quite civil to each other, at least before him. I would imagine such behavior is better for the business,” he observes with a slight furrow of ink-dark brows. “And for you. As an employee.”

“It is,” Jesse sighs in between massive mouthfuls of melted cheese and toasted bread. He’d tried making a few variations of sandwich, suited better to each of their tastes; his own are fully loaded with meat and cheese, light on anything that might be considered a vegetable. “Wasn’t expectin’ them to wind up back in cahoots just in time to pull their usual shenanigans.”

“Ah,” Hanzo says with a note of uncertainty, suddenly quiet but for the crunching of apple slices.

Jesse relaxes a little when he sees that neither of the old men have made any moves to pull the stunts they used to when he was a teen or a young twenty-something: exchanging phone numbers with his dates in case of emergency; Jack giving ten minute lectures on club safety and the signs of alcohol poisoning; Gabriel taking pictures like it’s _prom_ , for God’s sake.

He’s able to start chatting with Hanzo like usual, skirting right past any further conversation on Jack or Gabriel. The plate between them soon lies empty except for a few pieces of crust and a lone, rejected tomato slice Jesse extracted from one of his sandwiches.

There’s finally a moment where Jesse finds the time to plant his elbows on the table and lean in to ask, “What’re you doin’ on your tablet all the time? I see you tap-tap-tappin’ for hours. Looks more intensive than browsin’ the headlines. Do you play Hearthstone, by any chance?”

“No,” Hanzo says with a dead-eyed almost-sneer. “And I have no interest in playing it whatsoever. Did my brother tell you to ask that?

“No. My own curiosity.” Jesse props his scruffy chin up one one hand. “Was just tryin’ to imagine what you’re doing on it all day long.

“Very well,” the other man says, reluctantly accepting the answer. “I… I have been practicing drawing.”

Jesse watches, rapt as the man’s fingers drag across the tablet surface, its holoscreen humming to life. They’re an archer’s fingers, he remembers, surely as strong and calloused as they are elegant. “Can I see?”

“If you can be patient,” Hanzo says, dark eyes flicking up to briefly scold Jesse with _a look_.

“Shoot. Sorry,” Jesse nearly laughs. He’s on the edge of his seat, literally, half-leaned across the span of the table to get a better look as Hanzo sifts through files. “Hey, I know you’re gonna kill me for this, but would you ever consider drawing yours truly?”

Hanzo’s smile is quick, easy to miss. “Atop your noble steed, perhaps?”

“Any which way is fine by me. My only request is that you flatter me a little,” he says, his full stomach doing a happy little roll when the other man chuckles the barest bit. “Apply a bit of artistic license here and there, you know, gussy things up. _Here_ being my gut and _there_ being my--”

“I do not do nude works.” His intonation is flat, businesslike, but the shadow of a smile paired with it is wickedly teasing.

“I was gonna say my _arm_ ,” he insists, flexing the metal prosthetic and trying desperately not to visibly wilt under the sultry stare of those darkly gleaming eyes. “Been awhile since this thing’s gotten a good spitshine. And maybe go ahead and give it a badass tattoo like yours.”

Hanzo’s fingers stop, but he doesn’t offer Jesse a clear look at his art just yet. “I fear you may expect more skill than I possess. My work is amateur,” he offers as a disclaimer before passing the tablet to the younger man.

“Amateur? _This_ is amateur?”

“I was never professionally...”

“These’re damn fine. I like this one a lot,” he adds, briefly turning the tablet to show Hanzo. It’s a seascape, all variations of ocean color, from green-white seafoam to a deep burgundy that Jesse would never have thought belonged amid the usual blue of waves. After that there are sketches, half-finished drawings. He recognizes a few as the park across the street; a few more must be gestures based on other patrons.

“You need not spend so much time on them,” Hanzo says after a few minutes, voice slightly gruff. The elbow of his inkless arm rests on the table, his hand curled awkwardly under his jaw, spread against his throat. “You can skim through the rest.”

“And miss all this detail?” Jesse questions as he zooms in on various portions of a full-page illustration. He follows it up with an appreciative whistle when he finds the next page is incredible collection of wolf studies-- snarling, bristled fur, trotting, carrying limp-necked fowl in their jaws. “Hey, wait a sec. Did you design your own tattoo?”

“Yes.”

“Damn,” Jesse says, blatant in his awe as he peers at the portion of the tattoo that Hanzo’s sleeve exposes. “Genji never mentioned you drawing.”

“It was something I did in private,” Hanzo explains. “To unwind.”

“Oh. And you really don’t mind me seein’ all this?” he questions, feeling a sudden trepidation. He’s reminded of the time he’d sneaked a look through one of Jack’s old sketchbooks and stumbled across page after page of Gabriel-- baking, smoking, bathing, reading, sleeping, wearing his old fatigues and staring past the edge of the page-- all intimate and obviously never meant for others’ eyes.

“I do not. I intend to be more public with it in the future. Possibly. I wanted to gauge your reaction, first.”

“I don’t know much about art,” Jesse admits as he carefully hands back the tablet, “but I do know what I like. Hey, you know what you ought to do?”

“What ought I to do?” Hanzo asks back, propping the tablet up on his lap and folding his hands atop it.

“Show Jack,” Jesse says, brushing aside Hanzo’s immediate noise of uncertainty. “No, really. He did a little bit of art school after he was in the military. I bet he’d hang some of your stuff here if it fit. He did--” Jesse swivels in his chair to scour the walls-- “he did that one over there when we went camping in Yosemite one year. Seems like you enjoy natural stuff, too.”

“I do.” He hesitates before putting his fingers to the tablet again and then once more before relinquishing it to Jesse. “These were the gardens in Hanamura from my bedroom window.”

“Holy shit. I’m not sure whether to be more amazed by the view you had or how much talent you have. Like a prodigy or something--”

“One cannot be a prodigy at thirty-eight.”

“Whatever the adult word for it is, then. And if you ever have need of a model who’s ruggedly handsome, if maybe a little too fond of sweets, you’ve got my number.”

“I do not,” Hanzo says flatly. “Have your number,” he clarifies a moment after.

“You don’t?” he asks as if it’s news to him, grinning in as charming a manner as he can muster. “I can rectify that right now if you’d like.”

Hanzo toys with his phone for a few long seconds, studying Jesse with half-lidded eyes and the faintest suggestion of a smirk.

“Will I regret this?” he questions as he finally unlocks his sleek phone. He doesn’t wait for an answer, instead pulling up his contacts and then simply handing it to Jesse to key in.

“Hell no,” Jesse assures him as he adds his number and his name, complete with a little cowboy boot emoji. “And once I get yours, you too will be able to experience my drunken mass texts,” he teases.

“Is it too late to stop this from happening?” Hanzo asks, dry and flat as a salt pan. His expression is another matter-- lit with amusement, relaxed, a curve on his lips that is _dangerously_ close to a smile.

“Yup,” Jesse says, downright giddy as he returns Hanzo’s phone. “It’s mostly pics of whatever I’m eating and typed gibberish. Nothing offensive, nothin’ too dirty. Even drunk me has restraint.”

“You bill yourself as someone with restraint, hm?” Hanzo’s sharp gaze slips down, his head cocking to one side as he takes in the cherry red, rhinestone studded cowboy boots jutting out from under the small table.

“Hey, I could’ve worn the matching jacket and belt, too,” he says, a finger held up in mock admonishment. “See? _Restraint_.”

The older man nods a few times, eyes slipping shut. Jesse suspects there’s a genuine smile hidden behind Hanzo’s steepled hands.

“Hey... you wanna maybe watch a movie sometime?” Jesse ventures. He runs his damp palms down his denim-clad thighs and curls his short-nailed fingers into the fabric. “I’ve got more holodiscs than you can shake a stick at. All kinds of cool movies you can’t even get streaming. Real niche stuff.”

“Westerns?”

“Yeah, some,” Jesse says, biting his lip after. “Other stuff, too. I ain’t no one trick pony.”

“I would like that.”

Jesse barely has time to register Hanzo’s full-fledged smile before it’s gone, faded back into the man’s usual reserved expression. Still, he’s encouraged, a warm swell climbing up through his chest and into his throat, forcing near-giddy words to tumble out. “Shoot! Me too. We should do that soon, huh? Like tonight maybe? Or tomorrow, if you’re busy.”

“Tonight would be suitable. What is your address?” he asks, all business, his phone in hand and thumb poised to record the information.

“Oh. Now see, we wouldn’t actually be able to at my place,” Jesse explains. A sudden flush—the bad sort, accompanied by prickling sweat and a rush of embarrassment—spreads up his neck and over his cheeks. “Everything but my phone is broke right now. I was thinkin’ we could at Genji’s--”

“Absolutely not,” Hanzo sniffs. He pulls a face, pursing his lips and squinting hard in the direction of the counter where his brother and Reinhardt are working. After a moment, he glances back at Jesse. “You may come to my apartment.”

“Your place?”

“Yes. I’ll text you my address. I will expect you at eight. Bring something good, McCree.”

* * *

 

When Jesse McCree finds himself standing in the middle of the snack aisle at a ritzy little supermarket near Hanzo’s apartment for the better part of ten minutes, still unable to pick anything he thinks his host will like, he decides it’s probably time to make use of an inside connection.

“McCree,” Genji greets in a sing-song tone on the other end of the line. “Why don’t you ever use your camera? Turn it on so you can see me. I’m getting a new tattoo! Don’t tell Hanzo before I next see him—I want to surprise him.”

Jesse can hear voices in the background, soft in their chatter. Angela and Fareeha, probably serving as moral support and documentarians of Genji’s latest adventure. “If you have Angela live blogging it, won’t he find out anyway?”

Genji snorts into the mic, static buzzing in Jesse’s ear. “No, Hanzo is like you. He doesn’t care for social things. I’m pretty sure the only times he reads my blog or watches my videos are when my birthday is coming up and he doesn’t know what to get me.”

“Alright, but listen—I need your help, Genji--”

“McCree, I would go anywhere and do anything for you, but at this moment I am having my chest tattooed--”

“Nah, I just need you to answer some questions. But thanks. I’d do some crazy shit for you, too, buddy.”

There are giggles on the other end of the line, and Jesse’s eyes wrench shut as he realizes he must be on speaker. “You are sweet, Jesse McCree. Ask me anything!”

“Uh, what stuff does Hanzo like?”

“Oh.” Genji is quiet for a few long seconds, the buzz of a tattoo gun droning on in the background. “He likes animals, plants, really old anime, even older books…”

“What about snacks and movies, stuff like that?”

“Oh! Oh,” Genji purrs, suddenly mischievous. “You didn’t mention you were taking my brother on a _date_ \--”

Another voice cuts in, belonging to neither Angela nor Fareeha. “A date! Jesse McCree, how dare you not lead with that!”

“Ana? What the hell? I didn’t even know you were back in town! Why is--”

“She’s getting a tattoo with me,” Genji crows, a wild peal of laughter following. “Fareeha is so _embarrassed_. All the tattoo artists keep flirting with her mom. Anyway, Hanzo likes mystery movies, but he always guesses the endings and it’s really obnoxious. And he likes dried squid and dried apples—a lot of dried foods. And anything sweet potato. Sweet potato chips for sure. You’d better sneak some in, because there is absolutely nothing at a movie theater that he will want to eat, and he won’t say anything about it, but he’ll be grouchy the whole time because he is hungry.”

“We’re not going to the theater.”

There is a heavy beat of silence over the line, save for the background noise of the tattoo parlor. “McCree, you _cannot_ take him to your apartment--”

“You think I don’t know that? Though I will have you know that where I’m living now is in a better building and I’m a whole lot tidier now. Got myself two separate bins for laundry and trash, even.”

“Still…”

“He said we could hang out at his place,” Jesse mumbles into the mic, feeling hot under his collar.

Genji’s excited, baffled exclamation is drowned out by a delighted noise from Ana Amari.

“Jesse, I have never known you to be so shy about a date,” she practically crows. “It’s precious! Do Gabriel and Jack know?”

“No, and I plan on keepin’ it that way, if you don’t mind. Last thing I need is those two scarin’ him off with their twelve point emergency system and phone tree and pre-scheduled check-ins.”

“Ah, they worry so much. Have fun, dear, and don’t let anyone spoil your night,” Ana adds. “I’ll be by the shop soon to catch up, and I expect Gabriel to have a whole batch of his lemon bars ready for me.”

“Yes, ma’am,” Jesse says, grinning like an idiot in front of the rows of chips and bagged popcorn.

"McCree, listen,” Genji pipes up. “Be gentle with my brother. He is trying to branch out, I think, and try things he has never allowed himself before. But he is still figuring things out, and not all that experienced with dating in the first place. You are my best friend, Jesse. I trust you to treat my brother well.”

“I’m gonna take it slow, don’t you worry,” Jesse soothes.

“But don’t let him be an ass to you,” Genji is quick to add.

“Okay.”

“But try to be patient with him.”

“Alright.”

“I still can’t believe he agreed to go out with you,” Genji groans, his disbelief evident. “I can’t believe you like him like that! I can’t believe he actually invited you over!”

“Well, with that vote of confidence, I’m gonna go pay for all this and get going. Wish me luck, okay?”

“Mmm, good idea,” the man on the other line agrees. “He is a real stickler for punctuality. Good luck, McCree!”

A chorus of well wishes-- it sounds like even the tattoo shop artists must’ve joined in-- send him off, and less than ten minutes later Jesse McCree finds himself in the chandeliered lobby of Hanzo’s building, waiting to be let up.

* * *

 

The apartment runs contrary to Jesse’s expectations, which in hindsight were probably unrealistic. He’d imagined a spa, basically, with some kind of high class massage chair and a sauna somewhere, maybe a few water fixtures, too.

The reality is more practical and less intimidating. It’s a spacious two-bedroom, sparsely furnished and elegantly decorated. It’s _nice_ , without a doubt. Hanzo seems like the type who would’ve saved and invested smartly over the fifteen or so years he spent at Shimada Corp, and his comfortable financial situation reads clearly in the sleek pieces of real wood furniture, the lack of clutter, the minimalist designs that look like they ought to be cheap but really cost an arm and a leg.

But it isn’t so nice that Jesse feels out of his depth. It’s comfortable, and Jesse is relieved for that much as he toes off his boots in the entryway and lines them up beside Hanzo’s smaller shoes.

A  couple of garbage bags sit by the door, waiting to be taken to the trash chute at the end of the hall; Jesse offers to take them out, _insists_ , until Hanzo relents and thanks him for doing so. A win-win, as far as Jesse is concerned. He’s happy to do something to help, and the short walk down the quiet hall helps to settle his nerves.

“I meant to take them on my way down to the lobby,” Hanzo explains upon his return. “Thank you for going through the trouble.”

“Not at all,” Jesse dismisses. “Nice place you’ve got here,” he compliments.

The living room consists of a sleek white couch, a glass coffee table, a small bookshelf, and a modestly sized holovid TV above the mantle of an electric fireplace. Nothing hangs on the walls yet, though a few large paintings rest on the floor, leaned against the walls. A frosty pitcher and two glasses already sit on the coffee table, along with a few elegantly bound art books labeled in Japanese and a handful of small potted plants.

There’s a lot of open space. The living room alone is nearly as big as Jesse’s whole apartment. His socks slide a little over the light grey wood-patterned flooring, and he’s probably having too much fun with it, judging by Hanzo’s raised brows.

Jesse sits down gingerly as soon as Hanzo offers him a seat, ass scooted right to the edge of the couch and elbows resting on his knees. He notices long, dark hairs clinging to the white fabric and busies himself picking them off while the other man retreats into the kitchen.

"Do you like cantaloupe?" Hanzo asks from within, not quite visible through the wide-framed doorway.

"Yeah, sure. Like in a bowl of fruit salad?" There's no further response from the kitchen, and when Hanzo returns it is with half of a cantaloupe balanced in each hand.

He hands one off to Jesse as he sits down beside him on the couch. His own melon half is balanced in his lap as he taps a few times on his tablet to get the holovid running. Within moments the screen flickers to life, the projection crystal clear and vibrantly colored-- unlike the fuzzy holovid picture that Jesse's used to, with wonky 3D and occasional flickering.

"It's good," Jesse says as he scoops a bite of cantaloupe out with the small round spoon Hanzo had helpfully jabbed into the pale orange flesh. "Thanks."

"Thank you for coming. I apologize for the mess."

Jesse laughs, winning him an affronted and bemused expression from his host. "What mess? This place is pretty as a picture. You wanna see a real sty, you should come by my place. Give you some perspective on your situation here, which ain’t much of a situation at all.”

Hanzo makes a noise of amusement. Interest. His head bobs back slightly, almost nodding. "I would like to see your place, then. For my own personal edification."

"Oh. Oh, no, darlin'," Jesse says at once, though the sudden stiffening of Hanzo’s expression makes him regret it instantly. "I mean, I don't wanna scare you off, is all. My floor is probably more crumbs than carpet at this point."

"That is a horrifying image," Hanzo says plainly, a smile still tugging at one corner of his mouth. He takes a sip of his water, eyeing Jesse even as he is deep in his glass. "One which I am interested in seeing in person."

Jesse scratches at his beard, feigning a greater sense of ease than he currently feels. "Sure, if you're really interested. But no complainin' to me when you're traipsin' through my trash."

"You wouldn't even clean up for me?"

"Well, I'll try," Jesse snorts. "But it'll never look this good."

"This place is slovenly," Hanzo mutters, eyes still glued to the screen. He’s dressed as smartly as ever, though markedly more casual in his choices; a pale golden sweater that looks as soft as the cashmere scarf Ana bought Jesse for Christmas one year, loose black pants, his hair untied but neatly swept back behind his shoulder. "I have never... we had help, in the family home. I always thought myself tidy, but it turns out I am as lazy as my brother."

“For what it’s worth, you both seem pretty neat to me. Y’know, Gabe always tried to get me organized. He’s a nut for that stuff-- bins, boxes, labels. Never quite took, though. I’m just a goddamn mess, I guess.”

He turns and finds Hanzo studying him, cantaloupe still cradled in one hand, forgotten for the moment.

The man says nothing, and so Jesse fills the silence by grabbing his fabric grocery bag from the floor beside his feet and emptying it on the coffee table. “I wanted to bring some snacks, too. Be a good guest and all. I hope there’s something you like.”

Hanzo hums curiously as he examines the offered snacks strewn across his table, occasionally peering over at Jesse as he syncs up the holodisc to play. “It is interesting… these _all_ number among my favorite snack foods. It is almost as if you knew my exact preferences,” he notes as he plucks up a small bag of thick-cut sweet potato chips.

“Funny, right? Well, let’s get this show rollin’,” Jesse says, clearing his throat nervously as the first in a long line of unskippable trailers begin.

Hanzo swipes the tablet resting on the arm of the couch and the lights cut to low power; another swipe and they’re off completely.

Jesse balances his cantaloupe half on one knee to reach for the glass of water he assumes Hanzo left there for him, sitting on a mother of pearl coaster on the coffee table. He drains half the glass in one long gulp, and as the trailers continue to roll, Hanzo reaches over for the pitcher to top him off.

They exchange a _thanks_ and a _you are welcome_ , and nothing else.

It suddenly strikes Jesse that maybe this was a mistake. Maybe too much, too fast. An overstep, his impatience having gotten the better of him, like throwing bread in the oven without giving it time to proof. It would’ve been safer to take Hanzo to the theater and just pick the least bland looking flick.

They’ve only ever seen each other in the context of a crowded public space, surrounded by the bustle of L.A. just outside the windows. There’s nothing to buffer their interactions here, no easy targets for conversation. The drawn silences don’t feel companionable right now; they feel awkward.

It’s just them, settled next to each other in the dark of Hanzo’s living room, quietly working on a cantaloupe while they wait for the movie to start.

And when it does, Jesse feels some measure of relief from the gnawing worry that he’s put this relationship, fragile and half-formed as it is, on the fast-track to an early demise. Besides the visceral delight he feels at seeing the familiar opening and credits to one of his all-time favorite movies, it gives him something to _do_ , something more immediate to fret about: observing Hanzo’s reactions.

He ends up watching the other man more than he watches the movie. And that’s fine-- he’s seen Six-Gun Killer probably eighty times, as a conservative estimation. He knows it by heart. What Hanzo thinks of it is all new, however.

The shifting, color-changing light from the holovid plays across Hanzo's high cheeks and elegant nose, the movement of his jaw as he chews on cantaloupe or quietly crunches chips. He’s not very expressive, even at the height of the drama, the six-way stand-off in Death Valley-- the climax of gunshots and a soaring score that is reminiscent of classic, last-century Westerns.

Jesse’s not really sure why he expected otherwise. It’s not as if Hanzo’s capacity for an impassive poker face was unknown to him.

“So,” he begins as the final credits start to roll, his shoulders rising and tensing of their own accord. He draws and holds a breath before asking, “What’d you think?”

Hanzo has two empty bags and the rind of a scraped-clean melon in his lap, hemmed in by his crossed legs. The stark lighting highlights the sharp angles of Hanzo’s cheeks, the curve of his lower lip. “The effects were dated--”

“Yeah, it’s about twenty years old now.”

“But it was entertaining and well-edited. I admired the cinematography.”

A laugh tumbles out of Jesse, airy and relieved. “Really? You did? I’m glad you liked it. I mean, I worried…” he mumbles, trailing off into an uncertain chuckle.

“Worried? Is my opinion on this movie so important?”

“Well, yeah,” Jesse says with a shrug.

Hanzo sits in silence, again facing the screen, which has by now flickered back to the main menu. It plays a loop of Six-Gun at the Silicon Valley Shootout scene, shooting seamlessly with six different arms, human and robotic. “Because you are so fond of it.”

“And you,” Jesse adds smoothly, though his ears burn hot when Hanzo turns to look at him. He is suddenly mortifyingly conscious of the dampness along his lower back, under his arms, at his temples. It’s too late to do anything but stew in his sweat, though, because Hanzo’s stare rests upon him like a firm hand keeping him in place. He can hardly shy away now.

“Why?”

“You’re somethin’ else, that’s why,” he says, pushing out the words a little more forcefully than he’d intended, feeling as toasty warm as if he was in a hot kitchen. “A looker, for one. Smartest person in this room, for sure. I think you secretly _like_ how I dress. And you obviously love my cookin’, which is a huge plus. Anytime I’m not talkin’ to you, I wish I was. And it seems like you like my company, too, or else you’re just too polite to tell me to get--”

“I meant the movie,” his host eventually interrupts, a roguish smile curving his pale lips. He props his elbow on the back of the couch and rests his chin on a closed fist, with a curtain of black and silvered hair spilling down around his shoulders.

Jesse snorts and lets his head loll back. “You did not. Asshole,” he adds, grinning as he rubs at his eyes and wonders if it’s possible sweat himself into a puddle.

When he finally braves his embarrassment and peeks out from behind his hand, Hanzo is still sporting the same pleased expression—like the cat that got the cream, borderline smug. If this is Hanzo’s victory face, Jesse imagines he must be an insufferable competitor. “You lured me into that and then you just let me ramble on and on.”

“I liked what I was hearing,” Hanzo says as justification, a powerfully muscled shoulder rolling in a loose half-shrug. His eyes never drift far from Jesse’s face, his gaze firm underneath those short, straight lashes.

“Right. Well, the movie,” Jesse diverts, throwing his good arm over his face to cover his eyes and hide his sunrise-red cheeks. “One night not long after Gabe-- when I was under their roof, he sat me down on the couch and told me to watch a movie while he and Jack made some calls. Six-Gun Killer sounded cool, so that’s what I picked. Three hours later, I was a changed kid.”

“I wonder,” Hanzo says with the barest squint, “did your sense of style derive from Six-Gun’s?”

Jesse grins and slides his hat down to cover his face completely. “Yes,” he admits, muffled by the stiff material. He lifts it by the brim, just enough to peer out at Hanzo. “I mean, I come from out east, but I mostly grew up in New Mexico. I was more biker gang than anything else, back then. But seein’ that, sitting in Gabe and Jack’s apartment… I realized it was my chance at a clean start. I could be how I wanted to be. And I wanted to _be_ Six-Gun. Hell, I had the arm for it already. One of ‘em, at least,” he laughs as he flexes the fingers of his prosthetic.

“May I ask how you lost your arm in the first place?”

“Lookout duty that got real dicey, real fast,” he answers, short and clean. “Shotgun,” he adds as an afterthought, steady silences drawn between each additional detail he decides he is comfortable with sharing. “There was no saving the arm, or at least that’s what they told me. So they found me a surgeon to give me a real quick hack job. Didn’t get a prosthetic til I was seventeen, right after Gabe hired me on.”

“You seem comfortable with it,” Hanzo murmurs. He shows faint surprise when Jesse offers him his hand, palm up, to investigate; it passes quickly, his long and curious fingers tentatively brushing over decal-covered titanium and polypropylene. “I know Genji, he… my brother struggled at first.”

“Oh, I did, too,” Jesse chuckles. He flexes his fingers as Hanzo’s careful touch trails over pressure-sensitive plates along his palm. “Hated it, at first. How it felt. How it looked. Drove Gabe crazy that I wouldn’t even wear it half the time.”

His smile goes from thin to almost cheek-splitting as he watches Hanzo test the flexibility in his joints-- full three-hundred-and-sixty degree rotation, none of the hang-ups that come with tendons or bone-- and then testingly interlace their fingers. Hanzo’s flesh and blood digits are warm against his own, lean and strong, calloused from years of archery as a teenager.

“But Six-Gun made it seem… cool. I dunno. To scruffy little teenaged me, that movie had a lot of oomph. Lot of staying power. Really liked it.”

“You know, I am quite fond of you as well,” Hanzo says as the holoscreen eventually powers down of its own accord, an orange light briefly flashing to indicate power-saver mode. They sit side by side, eyes slowly adjusting to the loss of light, and Hanzo slowly loosens his grip and untwines their fingers.

“Would you like something to drink?” he asks Jesse, already standing from the couch. The only light now is a dim blue glow from the appliances in the kitchen and what little nighttime light can pass through the closed blinds. “Sake, vodka, whiskey?”

“Oh? Didn’t really peg you for a whiskey drinker,” Jesse comments, genuinely surprised.

“What, then, do you picture me drinking?”

“Wine,” Jesse says as he follows the shorter man through the dark, toward the kitchen, his hand held out before him so he won’t bump into the other man. Hanzo’s hair is saturated with shadow, like ink he’d love to dip his fingers through. “But, uh, in a goblet? Not a wine glass, per se, but… have you ever been to Medieval Times?”

“You are ridiculous,” Hanzo says, and Jesse swears he hears a laugh follow.

The lights come on, though they’re somewhere around sixty-percent power, Jesse suspects. The kitchen is stunning, but probably too big for just one person. He eyes the countertops and brand new refrigerator with mild envy. “We could go sometime.”

“I would rather not,” Hanzo says, his perfect nose wrinkling with distaste at the thought. “If it could be avoided.”

Jesse sucks in a quick breath through his teeth and plants his hands deep into his pockets. Genji shares his love of dinner theater, but it may have been optimistic to expect Hanzo to as well. “Well, what kinda places do you like to go? You like art museums?”

“There _is_ a museum exhibition,” Hanzo says haltingly as he pulls down a bottle from the top shelf of a well-stocked liquor cabinet, “that I have been interested in for some time. It isn’t art, but I wondered if you might be interested in attending with me?”

“Yeah, yeah, absolutely,” Jesse says too quickly, his words spilling over Hanzo’s. He bites his lip in lieu of his nails.

“I didn’t mention the subject of the exhibit yet,” Hanzo observes, casting Jesse a slyly satisfied look. It’s that same shit-eating grin from before, so pleased by the other man’s smitten stumbling that he allows his cool demeanor to warm through. “A life under nineteenth century Russian serfdom. An entire floor is dedicated to antique ploughs.”

“Well, that’s right up my alley,” Jesse says with a shrug. He clicks his tongue against his teeth and leans heavily against the marble counter. “I love peasants and, uh... feudalism. Serfs and such.”

“Is that so?” Hanzo asks, skeptical and audibly amused. “I studied Russian history when I was young,” he remarks as his hand lingers at the cabinet shelf that holds a variety of drinking glasses, all neatly ordered by height. “How do you take yours?”

“However you wanna fix it is fine by me,” Jesse says amiably, elbows propped on the counter, leaning in a little closer. “Full disclosure-- I wind up drinkin’ from the bottle most times.”

“Lately I have done the same,” Hanzo sighs as he selects two tall highball glasses and sets them on the black marble beside the bottle of Suntory whisky.

“So, you’re not gonna mind leadin’ me by the hand through this exhibit, are you? Be my tour guide, Mr. Russian-history-expert?”

“Hardly an expert,” Hanzo says dismissively, his cheeks tinging pink. “I was never able to pursue-- it was only an interest of mine. A hobby.”

“Yeah?”

“Yes. My father would buy me antique books, journals, diaries… first-hand sources, some of which were hundreds of years old. I translated the ones that I could in my rather limited spare time, between school and training and my other duties.”

“How many languages do you know, out of curiosity?”

“Not so many,” Hanzo says with a half-hearted shrug. “Five. Do you care to guess which ones?”

“God, you’re a smart fella,” Jesse groans. “Let’s see,” he says, pretending to size up the other man. He draws it out, strumming his fingers on the countertop and squinting, until Hanzo is on the verge of rolling his eyes. He’s got as little patience as his brother. “Japanese, English-- freebies, obviously. Russian. Korean, probably, since Genji knows it. And... French.”

Hanzo’s smile grows, though his eyes remain downcast as he continues to assemble their drinks. “How did you come to guess the last one?” he asks.

“Saw a couple of French titles on your little bookshelf out there,” Jesse admits. “They any good?”

“All of those are newly acquired. I have not made time to read them yet.”

“What about your old ones?”

“I was unable to bring them with me when I left ho-- Hanamura.” He covers the stumble in his words with clinking ice, dropping clear, fat cubes into each glass. The Japanese whisky follows, amber liquid seeping over and around the ice. “McCree. You are multilingual yourself, are you not?”

“Oh, barely. I have a firm mastery of English, as you can no doubt tell,” Jesse says, rubbing at his beard, grinning when he hears Hanzo’s amused huff. “Pretty good handle on Spanish. Little bit of Mississippi Choctaw from when I was real small. And I picked up some good ol’ American Sign Language over the years-- real handy with a lot of omnics, y’know, especially the older ones. Hm. What’s this? Never had my whisky with water before.”

“Good for long business dinners with stifling people,” Hanzo says dryly. He finishes pouring careful measures of chilled water into each glass and leaves the pitcher sitting on the counter. He then stirs each glass carefully with a long-handled spoon, thoroughly mixing the water and liquor.

“What about for casual dates with devastatingly attractive people?” Jesse inquires, already grinning as he lifts his glass to his lips.

“I am hoping it serves well for that, too,” Hanzo responds smoothly even as the color continues to rise in his cheeks, a blusher red than Jesse’s ever seen on the man.

His own skin is hot to the touch, too, and at the first sip Jesse finds himself grateful for the water and ice. Still… it’s watered down, and he misses the bite of his usual drink. Suntory is good stuff, too, usually well beyond his own price range. “Mm. Not bad.”

“Would you prefer it straight?” Hanzo asks, lowering his own glass until it rests on his left palm.

“No, no. I like it just fine. Very refreshing. Makes me want a front porch and rocking chair.” He pauses, breath hitching in his chest for a moment. “Christ. I sound like Jack. Please, ignore my embarrassing myself left and right tonight.”

“You’ll remember,” Hanzo says through a deep breath, “that I grew up with Genji. Do not worry. You aren’t half as embarrassing.”

“Shoot, I dunno,” he drawls. “I think I give him a run for his money.”

With a gesture-- and no explanation offered-- Hanzo leads him beyong the kitchen and dining area and through the open door into his bedroom.

Jesse’s socked feet drag along the smooth floor as they go, his steps inviting every creak from the floorboards while the soft pad of Hanzo’s feet goes nearly silent. He only has a few seconds to wonder, dazedly, what will happen next. His heartbeat is suddenly a racket in his ears, too loud to hear anything Hanzo might be saying.

He sees Hanzo’s bed-- oversized, unmade, white sheets rumpled and the faintly patterned duvet spilling onto the floor-- before anything else. His nightstand is piled with dirty dishes and half-filled glasses, empty bottles like the Suntory sitting in the kitchen; his clothes are neatly folded but not put away. The tall bookshelf in the corner only bears a handful of books, its darkened shelves looking all the more empty and forlorn.

There’s nowhere he feels comfortable resting his eyes; everything he is witness to feels faintly like intrusion. He’s still spinning at the notion that Hanzo would even allow him this far, this close, this much-- and that’s _before_ he catches sight of ink and paper sketches of Genji and an older man who looks to be their father on the desk they pass by.

The only light here spills in from the windows-- the wan, perpetual glow of the city, and maybe moonlight mixed in, too. Hanzo looks stunning in it, and there’s not much Jesse can do to keep his pulse from ticking up and his palm from going slick against the glass in his hand.

There is a balcony, if it can be called that, that branches out from the bedroom. It’s more of a ledge, really, barely more than a foot wide; too narrow for any seating, but serviceable for leaning against the rail and staring out into the city.

Hanzo keys in a combination to unlock the glass door and slides it into the wall. Warm air and city noise waft in on the nighttime breeze, lights near and far dotting the darkness.

Jesse hovers at the threshold alongside Hanzo, enjoying the outside view but not quite comfortable stepping onto the narrow jut of concrete and tempered glass. Even like this, each of them leaning against opposite sides of the balcony doorway, they’re close enough to brush arms.

“It is no porch,” Hanzo says after a moment, eyes fluttering shut for a moment, forehead creasing slightly. “Yet I thought…”

“It’s real nice,” Jesse says when the silence stretches out languidly between them. There is a bar on the street below Hanzo’s apartment, alive with laughter and the hum of chatter and live music. He sips on his mixed whisky and adds, “It’s sweet of you to take my rambling seriously.”

“It is kind of you to indulge me,” Hanzo replies with his drink cupped in one hand and his perfect fingers strumming over the glass. “Here, and at your workplace.”

The baker grins as he crosses one leg behind the other, his toes buried in the off-white mohair of an area rug. He inhales through his nose, deep enough to fill his lungs with air that smells faintly of wood polish and the drooping tulips and lilacs sitting on the bedside table. “That’s as much for me as it is for you, honestly. But you know, I’m busy in the back most of the time. Why don’t you chat with anyone else there? Lena’s a real sweetheart. So’s Winston.”

Hanzo doesn’t say anything for a long while, blank-faced as he stares impassively out into the night.

Jesse doesn’t have a good read on him yet, and as he debates internally about whether the other man is offended or upset or just thinking, he glances down and realizes he’s started chewing through the nail on his ring finger.

He finishes his drink but it does nothing to chase away the glum worry chewing at his insides. The silence is too much, but before Jesse can open his mouth, Hanzo does.

“You were the only one who approached me. Aside from my brother.”

“Oh. Well, that’s--”

“And your initial reaction was more along the vein of what I expected, despite his reassurances that you all did not-- that I wasn’t unwelcome.”

“I’m never gonna get to forget that, am I?” Jesse mumbles. “And why would you think we wouldn’t want you around? If you’d come and introduced yourself as Genji’s brother from the get go, I could’ve avoided acting like a jackass to you.”

Hanzo levels a cold, side-eyed glare at him. He cocks his head when Jesse gives him a quizzical shrug in response.

“Shit, I ain’t a mind-reader,” Jesse huffs.

The expression on the other man softens in an instant-- barely, but enough to make a difference. “I didn’t mean to-- my apologies.” He sighs heavily and sags a little against the doorframe. “I expected to be disliked, therefore I did not bother with forced pleasantries. You are Genji’s people, not mine. And you… you all are aware of the history between my brother and I.”

Jesse hums to that, nodding once as he gets it. He’s surprised Hanzo ever stepped foot into Athena’s, thinking that its staff might well despise him on Genji’s behalf. “Can I get another drink?”

“I could use more myself,” Hanzo says in agreement, staring down into his ice-filled glass as they meander back to the kitchen.

“You know I like you, right?” the baker asks, his forehead creasing. He pours himself another glass of whisky, this time without the water. “A little more than fondly.”

“You barely know me,” Hanzo says, annoyance edging into his words even as the tips of his ears go dark with a blush that also lends a tinge to his cheeks.

“I’ve known you secondhand for like ten years,” Jesse retorts. “Through Genji.”

“Fine. Then you know every shameful and sordid detail of my past,” the man amends, nodding to himself as he goes through the motions of fixing another whisky for himself.

“The worst he ever said about you was that you’re a perfectly boring nerd. Which, I mean, yeah… hearing about how everyone constantly oohed and ahhed over you kinda grated after a while. But it surely can’t be any worse than what all you’ve heard about _me_.”

“I believe nearly causing my brother’s death trumps your botched desserts and throwing up on a customer,” Hanzo says sourly.

“No one’s mad at you about that, y’know. Least of all Genji, and we all kinda took our cue from him,” Jesse says.

“You expect me to believe you never thought ill of me? When you saw my brother scarred and kept whole by carbon fiber and nanotech, in therapy for more than half a decade?”

“Can’t say I liked you much, but that was more because you sounded like the golden boy who got it all. Not because you did something stupid when you were twenty-something and it went sideways. Not when I knew you were making sure Genji got the best doctors around and never had to worry about money, and that you’d apologized and tried to do right by him. I was way more pissed at your family for not giving two shits about taking care of him--”

“Yes,” Hanzo agrees, forehead knitting tight and his expression briefly pinching like Genji’s does when he’s upset.

“You’re okay, though. I mean, more than okay,” Jesse says. “You’re not quite what I expected. In a good way.”

“I can say the same for you,” Hanzo says after a moment, brown eyes briefly sweeping up to Jesse’s. He sulks for a few moments before adding, “I had almost thought my regard for you unsalvageable, at a certain point--”

Jesse blames the liquor his looser tongue and slower mind. “Because I gave Genji the idea to send you a glitter bomb for your birthday?”

“A glitter-- _you_ were behind that? That-- it _exploded!_  The day before a board meeting, no less, and I was-- I was still finding glitter on my person _months_ later-- nevermind. It... it doesn’t matter,” Hanzo says with gritted determination and a forced calm. But there remains a hard glint in his eyes when he looks at Jesse over the rim of his glass-- an irritated squint that makes Jesse think he ought to start being cautious when he opens his packages, lest he suffer the same fate.

“It was for your leaving,” Hanzo clarifies before taking a deep swig of his drink.

“Ah,” Jesse says. “‘Course.”

“He called me in tears, sick with worry. Neither Angela nor Fareeha could console him. I certainly did not know what to say or do. I was furious.”

“I’m sorry,” Jesse says, leaning into the counter. A drawer handle digs into his hip, but he doesn’t feel like moving. “I wasn’t expecting anyone to miss me like that.”

“You had to,” Hanzo disagrees, voice hard. “You must have known. _McCree, McCree, McCree_ ,” he says, tilting his head side to side, dark strands of his shoulder-length hair swaying. “He never stopped talking about you. Your sayings, your dress, how good you were to him.”

“I didn’t do much.”

“You fulfilled the role of a brother to him better than I ever did,” the other man says, bitter as the cheap whiskey he’s breaking into now, the good Suntory pushed aside in favor of a cheaper domestic. “I should thank you for that,” he adds, idly turning the new bottle in circles on the marble-topped counter.

“Wasn’t my intention to butt in,” Jesse says tersely, his good humor wearing thin. “I was just being a friend.”

“I mean it sincerely, though I cannot deny that I was quite jealous of your closeness with him. I am grateful that he had people here that he could rely upon, as I was grossly unfit for such a capacity. I was even grateful, partly, when you took your leave. It was nice to hate someone _else_ for hurting Genji, if just for a while.”

Jesse doesn’t know what to say to that, and his cup has run dry.

“You must be ready to leave,” Hanzo observes. He stares down into his glass and swallows so thickly that Jesse can see the flex of his throat. “This was a mistake on your part. I am not even good company for myself--”

“You wanna see another movie? I’ve got A West Wind, and Equilomnium, and the latest Marvel one. Or we could rewatch Six-Gun.”

“It’s late,” Hanzo objects, slow and uncertain, both hands holding his glass like a lifeline. “I should not keep you--”

“You ain’t,” Jesse cuts in. “You’re damn well aware that I’ll up and leave anytime I feel like it, aren’t you?” he asks dryly, shaming Hanzo into a red-faced flush. “C’mon. Another movie wouldn’t hurt. Unless you’d rather I go.”

“No. I would... prefer you stay.”

“Alright,” Jesse says, allowing a small smile.

They abandon the movie halfway through when Jesse asks about a long strand of yarn he found between the couch cushions and then successfully coaxes Hanzo into showing him another hidden hobby: needlework, Hanzo says, that he initially took up with no intent of creating anything at all. He’d only liked it for the repetitive motions, the process, eventually unwinding his stitches and starting anew when he ran out of yarn.

He sifts through crochet needles and messily wound balls of yarn in the drawer of his nightstand to find a small collection of lopsided creations. “Then I found a pattern for this Pachimari my brother likes so much, and I thought... I might as well try to be productive. I have not quite mastered it, obviously.”

“I think this fella’s cute,” Jesse says as he takes the lumpy yarn figure in hand. He gives it a little squeeze, wiggles it near Hanzo’s disinterested face.

“It’s terrible.”

“I like him.”

Jesse winds up hanging onto the misshapen Pachimari, cradling it in the crook of his metal arm for a while; letting it sit on his lap when they eventually settle on Hanzo’s messy bed; cradling it against his chest when they end up lying side by side atop the covers, talking and drinking later into the night.

“Genji ever tell you how I came to be here? How I met Gabe?”

“I believe so,” Hanzo murmurs as he rolls onto his side to face Jesse. He stretches out one arm above his head, pillowing his cheek on a tattooed bicep. “A version of it, at least. I am obliged to inform you that Genji is not the most reliable storyteller.”

“Still nervous about what he’s told me about you?”

“No,” Hanzo says, evading Jesse’s gaze by fiddling with a lumpy tendril from the Pachimari that is now nestled against the larger man’s side. “Why? What are you thinking of?”

“...Is it true that a dog walked up and peed on you once? Just like that?”

“Yes,” Hanzo admits, dry and grudging.

Jesse laughs to himself, the ugly noise growing louder with the deepening of Hanzo’s frown. “Ok, well, I was with this one gang for a while--”

“The Deadlock Gang,” Hanzo supplies, already familiar with Jesse’s background.

“Right, and it got busted up when I was sixteen. I made it out before the raid, which at least kept me out of jail or juvie or whatever they’d have done with me, but it meant I was alone in California, no ties, no family. I made my way to L.A. and fell back on petty theft to get by. So, one day I see this guy carryin’ a big ass cake box out to his car-- turns out it was for Jack’s birthday, actually-- and I thought wow, _easy_. I could see his wallet in his back pocket, plain as day, so I went for it.”

“Now, you’ve seen how Gabe’s built. _And_ he’s ex-military, and really good in hand-to-hand, though I didn’t know that at the time, of course. Didn’t think he’d be willing to drop that cake, either. So he gets me by the wrist, and I was bracing myself for the ass kicking of a lifetime at that point. Shit-- growing up, I’d seen people get killed for less.”

“He didn’t beat my ass, much to my surprise. He didn’t let me go, either. Nah, he dragged me inside, grilling me about where my parents were. I told him they were dead, but honestly, I have no idea. And next thing I knew, he was feeding me the best damn food I’d ever had and Jack was hovering with his first aid kit, full EMT mode, the both of ‘em just… ridiculous, you know.”

Hanzo hums thoughtfully.

“So… how’d you get to be here? Mind you, I don’t keep up with Genji’s life via social media, so you bein’ in L.A. hit me out of the blue.”

He grins softly, mouth half-hidden against his arm. “Is this how you pry? By offering your own story first?”

“Should I try another tact?”

A soft noise follows, tired and dryly amused. His voice is more serious, though somewhat slurred by alcohol and sleepiness. “No. It is a fair trade.” He is quiet for a moment, clean nails scratching lightly at his bedspread. “I acted. After one too many afternoons of contemplation before my father’s gravestone, I realized that I could no longer continue along the path that had been charted for me.”

“So it’s self-imposed exile?”

“Well. I may have made a few statements before I left that ensured I am no longer welcome in Hanamura.”

“But you didn’t have to come all the way to America.”

“My family’s reach is long, and I insulted them greatly. And I wanted to see my brother again,” Hanzo says softly. “And apologize in person. I had not seen him face-to-face since the hospital in Tokyo. He was unconscious at the time.”

Jesse makes an approving noise and rolls onto his side, facing the other man. Less than a foot of cool, quilted duvet lies between them. “Sometime’s getting away is the right thing to do.”

“I still find myself longing for home,” Hanzo sighs, turning his head to stare at the high ceiling, “though I know I am unwelcome there. At times, I forget my circumstances and imagine I am merely on a business trip. I catch myself planning what I will do when I return. And then I remember...”

He goes quiet, hands clasped loosely together over his middle, rising and falling with each deep breath. There’s a hitch to the rhythm when Jesse maneuvers a little closer, but it passes; his breaths come sharper, quicker, and the lift of his chest shows it.

There’s just a hair’s breadth between them, with Jesse close enough to smell Hanzo’s dark locks-- honeyed and flowery, faint beneath the lingering scent of whisky that they share. He can see errant strands pushed and pulled by his breath, which comes louder and heavier than Hanzo’s. This close, he can see that there are pale hairs even in Hanzo’s neat beard, though they’re incredibly few and far between.

He still wants to be closer.

“I know you miss home. I know it,” he says, soft against the older man’s ear. The brush of his whiskers makes Hanzo twitch and shudder. “Even a bad home hurts to leave behind sometimes. But look, L.A.’s alright so far, ain’t it?”

“It is… growing on me.”

Hanzo turns his head just slightly, watching Jesse from the corner of his eye.

“Hope it ain’t the only thing,” Jesse purrs. Or tries to, given that his tongue feels heavy and his eyelids are steadily drooping.

Hanzo’s snort is overly loud and attractively unrestrained. “You, too. Like kudzu,” he adds with a scrunch of his nose.

“The vine that ate the south, hm? That kinda fits,” Jesse murmurs as he wriggles to the side again, this time ensuring that he and Hanzo are touching. His bare forearm is treated to the gentle slide of Hanzo’s merino sweater, the fabric luxuriously soft on his coarse hair and tawny, freckle-dotted skin.

He can feel Hanzo shift closer, just barely. Fixing himself until he’s comfortable against Jesse’s side. Silky strands of his hair tickle against the other man’s jaw.

They lie beside each other on Hanzo’s bed and continue to talk, breaking only for the bathroom or to raid the kitchen for more drinks or snacks. There’s always a moment of hesitation when it comes time to settle in beside each other again, an awkwardness as one or the other of them closes the gap this time.

Topics crisscross both of their lives-- Hanzo’s first loss in a high-pressure archery competition and his subsequent retreat from the sport; Jesse’s roots in Mississippi, close to the Louisiana border, under his grandmother’s roof until she died when he was ten. They meander into the absurd, too, and it soon feels as comfortable as talking to Genji. Recurring dreams. Favorite childhood movies. Would you rathers and have you evers. Cross-checking the stories they’d heard about each other through Genji.

Jesse is surprised to learn that no, Hanzo never shot an apple off of Genji’s head, but he _did_ indeed wear a wolf costume to bed from ages eight to ten. The storied ‘date mix-up’ wasn’t nearly as dramatic as Genji made it out to be. Hanzo concedes that Genji’s accounts of the jellyfish fight, their ramen eating contest, and the time he tried to dye his hair like his brother’s are all accurate.

Jesse himself has to explain and account for various snippets that Hanzo recalls from over the years: the six hour erection that lasted so long Genji gave it a name while they waited in the ER; the brief phase where he _didn’t_ dress like a cowboy; the time Genji walked in to find Jesse and Gabriel struggling with the old Bastion espresso machine as it spurted coffee and grounds in a ninety-degree arc in front of it.

“Is that the sun?” Jesse asks some time later, squinting out the balcony window at the horizon. He rummages through his pockets for his phone, then remembers he left it lying on the coffee table hours ago. He rolls over, leans across the bed, and taps the Vishkar tablet sitting on the nightstand instead, its holoscreen immediately flickering to a bright blue and white display with the date and time. “Shit. Shit. Five-thirty-eight? Seriously?”

Hanzo’s face is buried in his hands. “I have kept you all night. I--”

“Hanzo--”

“I do not know why you let me prattle on,” the man snaps at him.

“I can sleep any old time,” Jesse says with a yawn. “But you talkin’ this much is a treat.”

“Ridiculous,” Hanzo murmurs, still drowsy. “How do you plan to get home? I can find you a ride.”

“Nah, I’m just gonna head to work. Your place ain’t too far.” He sits up with a groan that turns into yet another yawn.

“You’ve had no sleep,” Hanzo argues, still laid out on his back. He blinks slow, resting his eyes seconds at a time. Every movement he makes is languid, loose, all his usual tautness traded for a comfortable lethargy.

Jesse wants that, too. Lying back down beside Hanzo is awfully tempting, and not only because he himself is tired to the bone.

“Well, fortunately,” Jesse says, flashing a grin that Hanzo probably won’t even see, “where I’m headed, I can get all the espresso my nerves can handle. But I do appreciate your concern. Awful fond of me, ain’t you?” he teases.

“Mildly fond, at best,” Hanzo corrects. “You should rest.”

“I can take a quick nap in the office later. Jack used to do it.”

“Hardly sufficient,” Hanzo chides as he gradually rouses himself, lazily pushing himself up with one tattooed arm.

“I’ll have lunch with you if you feel like comin’ by later. Once you get your beauty sleep, of course,” Jesse adds.

“We all cannot simply roll out of bed as handsome as you are, McCree.”

It’s laughable, honestly, though Jesse only cracks a smile. He probably looks a mess, if past all-nighters are anything to go by; meanwhile, Hanzo is a vision, as usual, looking like a mussed up model straight from some distracting billboard or pop-up ad for something far beyond a simple baker’s spending capacity.

Jesse whistles low as he pushes himself up and off of the bed, surprised to find his back doesn’t ache in its usual fashion. “Still such a charmer, even when you’re exhausted. And you can call me Jesse, you know.”

“Jesse.” His dark eyes drift from Jesse, gaze slipping to the side. “You might consider leaving now.”

“Ah, shit. Shit,” the baker says, his grin turning to a grimace when he follows Hanzo’s line of sight and catches the tablet’s time display. “Gotta go. Gabe’s gonna be on my ass like glaze on a donut. Lunch, though, right? What would you like?”

“To take you out. If that is acceptable.”

“Oh. Yes. _Please_.”

“Anywhere in particular?”

“Why don’t you surprise me?”


End file.
